


Where the Angels Die

by ZombifyMeCapn



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 13:51:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 53,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8492224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombifyMeCapn/pseuds/ZombifyMeCapn
Summary: Negan was a take-no-prisoners kind of man. So why did he decide to keep her? Negan/OC.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So after a very long writing hiatus, here is my latest work. This was an idea I had that I'm just going with the flow on. I don't tend to plan out entire stories, rather just snippets that I think will be interesting. Since the premiere of The Walking Dead (insert ugly crying), Negan has been on my mind like no one's business. So I gave birth to this lovechild right here. Because I didn't get far in the comics to really get to know Negan, I'm just going off other things I've read to piece together his personality. I hope I can do him justice. So, without further ado, I give you, "Where Angels Die". Please review if you have time to. I'd love to know how successful this story is so I can know if I should keep it going.

“To the gate!”

There was a bustle of activity as bodies ran this way and that, armed themselves with loaded semiautomatic weapons, shoving spare magazines into their belts. They formed a ‘V’ around the gate as the massive metal doors were cranked open, manned by two men atop the wall, guns raised and ready. An onlooker may have deemed them unnecessary as two bodies, one heavily bleeding from an unseen wound in his side, the other, a woman, not faring much better. Both were filthy, covered in a thick layer of dirt and grime and who knew what else. Beyond them, roamers trailed hungrily, drawn by the scent of fresh blood.

One armed guard moved forward, resting his gun on his shoulder, to relieve some of the weight off the woman’s shoulders. Together they shuffled the injured, and possibly dying, man further into the compound as the gates were cranked closed behind them and locked with a wide metal beam. Bodies crowded around the trio as the woman and the guard laid the bleeding man in the dirt. Before the woman could blink the guard had straightened and turned his gun on her. He was a wiry fellow, with stringy blonde hair and an ugly burn scar that took up the left side of his rat-like face.

“He bit?” he asked roughly, his voice muffled by the gun pressed to his face. The woman turned cold, hazel eyes on him, narrowing them only slightly.

“You tell me.” And she yanked up the bleeding man’s shirt, revealing a cacophony of bullet holes that laid out a game of connect-the-dots across his bloody torso. “I want to know who did this. Who attacked us.”

The man smirked and huffed, moving the gun to his shoulder once again. “Honey, it ain’t us. If it were, you’d know it.” The look in his eyes caused the woman’s back to stiffen. Just who were these people?

“Very well,” she said tightly, carefully eying the men around them. They looked on with curiosity, but also with mistrust. She couldn’t say she very well blamed them. “He needs a doctor.”

The rat guard contorted his mouth to the side, weighing his options. “Might be we have one of those. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

The woman grimaced at the pet name, wrinkling her nose. “Olivia. Liv, for short. This is Matthew.”

“Name’s Dwight. Where you from?” Matthew emitted a low groan, drawing Olivia’s and Dwight’s attention to him.

“Think we can save the small talk, Dwight?” Olivia asked rhetorically. Dwight moved into action, stooping low to take Matthew’s other arm. Together they hefted him up and off to the infirmary. Olivia made a point to memorize the route they took in the event she needed to make a quick getaway.

Dwight led them up a small slope, to a worn-down factory building, windows blown out across the front. They took a left and went through a doorway leading to a set of stairs. The trek upwards was slow, as Olivia and Dwight nearly dropped Matthew twice in the tight quarters of the stairwell. Finally, the door to the third floor was opened and the trio filed through, not without some difficulty. Matthew was rapidly growing weaker, forcing Olivia and Dwight to carry more of his dead weight and slowing them down considerably. Blood oozed from his numerous wounds, painting the clean tile floor with bright red specks. 

As Dwight, Olivia, and Matthew neared a set of double doors, not unlike a real hospital, they opened, and a woman looking down at a clipboard walked through. Dwight called to her, and the older woman glanced up, her eyes widening in surprise to see he wasn’t alone.

“Get Carson,” Dwight ordered. The woman turned on her heel and sped back through the double doors, the trio following behind her, attempting poorly to keep up. She disappeared around a corner and a few moments later, a troupe of people wheeling a rusty kitchen table appeared, skidding to a halt in front of the trio.

Olivia and Dwight carefully transferred Matthew to their waiting arms, and the team eased him onto the makeshift gurney. Matthew hissed lowly as his wounds stretched and pressed a bloody hand to his torso. He appeared to pass out seconds later.

“Ma’am,” said the man who could only be “Carson” to Olivia, “Ma’am, you can let go now.” She hadn’t realized she’d had a death grip on Matthew’s arm until Carson was peeling her fingers away. “We’ll take good care of him.”

And then Matthew was gone, disappeared around the corner to a no doubt waiting surgeon. Olivia stared after him, rooted to the spot, her mind blank.

Dwight cleared his throat. “Can I get you some water?”

Olivia shook her head sharply, though her throat felt like sandpaper. When had been the last time they’d drank anything? Dwight was waiting, clearly not taking no for an answer, so Olivia pursed her dried lips and nodded slowly. Mirroring the nod, Dwight stepped away and strode down the hallway. He returned to her side with a fresh water bottle, cracking the top and handing it to her. The water felt good on her hands as it spilled over the open top, and the better part of Olivia told her to drink slowly. She almost moaned at the feeling of the water on her poached throat, opted for a sigh through her nose instead. The water bottle was nearly empty by the time she paused to take a breath.

Her eyes slid to Dwight, who was looking at her with a combination of sympathy and confusion. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve, capping the water bottle and moving to hand it back to him.

“Finish it,” he said with a shake of his head. “Lord knows you need it. And we have plenty more.”

“Thank you,” she murmured before downing the rest of the water bottle. Dwight took the empty plastic from her hands and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. Olivia huffed through her nose. Trash cans at the end of the world.

“You never answered my earlier question. Where you from?” Dwight asked, leaning his weight onto one foot.

Olivia cast her eyes down, shrugged a shoulder. “Does it matter anymore? Matt and I were the only ones left.”

Dwight felt a twinge of sympathy for the woman, though her voice and eyes remained stoic. The woman had been through hell, he determined.

“Wanna tell me what happened?” He’d plastered ‘business’ to his voice, straightened his shoulders to peer down at her through his stringy hair. If there were more dangerous people out there then he had a damn right to know. Olivia’s eyes snapped to his, not missing the sudden change in demeanor.

“By the look of that artillery your men were carrying, I’d say you already know,” was her short, but heated reply. Dwight clenched his jaw and her eyes followed the movement.

“Like I said, if it had been The Saviors, you’d know it.” Olivia’s light eyebrow quirked.

“The Saviors? You plannin’ on saving the world?”

Before the two could engage in a verbal lashing, Carson reappeared, a solemn look on his face. Olivia regarded him stonily.

“He doesn’t have long. We tried removing the bullets but one of them lodged deep in his lung and we can’t touch it. You can see him, say goodbye.”

She followed Carson without a second glance back at Dwight, but he followed too. Carson led them to a small, dimly-lit room. It was cold, despite the summer heat outside.

Matthew was laying on the kitchen-table-turned-gurney, pale and breathing with difficulty. They had stripped away his shirt, leaving his bleeding torso bare. Fresh blood still seeped from the wounds. Olivia’s mind was blank as she stared at him. Matthew slowly opened his eyes as Olivia came to a stop at his side.

“Hi.” It came out as a hoarse whisper, thanks to the bullet lodged in his lung.

“Hey. Doc said you’re gonna be fine,” she said with a straight face. The corner of Matthew’s lip upturned just slightly.

“You never could lie to me. Not gonna be long now.” Matthew blinked slowly, the light in his eyes beginning to fade. He smiled one last slow smile that she didn’t return. “Don’t forget to be, Liv.”

“Stay gold, Ponyboy,” she murmured. Matt breathed out an attempt at a laugh, and then his breathing labored again and he stilled.

The light dulled in Matt’s eyes, and he was gone. Olivia blew a sigh out through her nose and straightened her shoulders. Her throat felt tight, but her eyes remained dry. Turning on her heel, she strode from the room, drawing the curious gazes of Dwight, Carson, and his assistants. Like she expected, Dwight followed her.

“Stay gold, Ponyboy?” he asked mockingly. Olivia pinned him with a cold stare but before she could retort, commotion down the hall pulled their attention away from one another.

A man in a blue denim button up and jeans, with a Burt Reynolds mustache and a receding hairline, marched down the hall, a trio of armed men at his sides. He held out his arms as he came to a stop before Dwight and Olivia.

“What’s this, Dwight?” the newcomer asked. “Inviting in outsiders without consulting the big man first? He already punished you once, Dwight. I’d hate to see what strike two gets you.” It didn’t take a genius to see the tension between the two men as they stood nose to nose in the hallway.

“What was I supposed to do, Simon? Let them get torn apart?”

“Aww,” the man called Simon cooed. He took one more menacing step towards Dwight. He was considerably shorter, but it was clear to Olivia that this Simon had more power than Dwight did. “I’m starting to think you don’t have the balls to be a Savior, Dwight. Perhaps we’ll see what he has to say. Now, who is this gorgeous thing?”

Olivia steeled herself as Simon turned his beady eyes to her, a wicked grin on his face. He whistled low.

“I have to say, Dwight, I can’t say I blame you. Would’ve been a shame to let the roamers get this one. But you’re here without permission. That’s a big no-no. He’s heard all about your little charity case.”

Dwight visibly swallowed as Simon took a rough hold of Olivia’s upper arm. “Time to meet the man.”

She was dragged roughly across the building and up four more flights of stairs. When she tripped, Simon tugged her hard to pull her to her feet. He shoved her through the seventh-floor doorway into a new hallway. This one was carpeted and may have serviced as an office floor in another life. The walls were bare, painted a boring tan color. The wood doors lining the hall were splintered in places, falling off the hinges in others. Some, such as the one Simon shoved her through, were completely intact.

Olivia was shoved roughly into a hard-backed chair that sat before a massive oak desk. A bookshelf stood, full of books, to the left. A mini bar waited next to the door, a decanter and a pair of glasses sat on the silver tray. Laying on the desk before her was a Louisville Slugger, around which a string of barbed wire had been wrapped tightly. Olivia stared at it ominously, wondering why someone would need to do such a thing. Movement to her left caught her attention.

A man in a black leather jacket was running his hand across the bindings of the books on the shelf. He wore a pair of what looked like worn grey slacks and combat boots and he didn’t turn even as Simon acknowledged him.

“This is her, sir.”

The man in black waved his hand and Simon turned and left the room. It was silent in the small space as the man in black continued to scan the titles on the shelves. Finally, he spun away from the shelves with the grace of a ballerina and eased into the chair behind the desk.

“So, you’re the one who’s been wasting my fucking resources.” His voice was smooth, a bit raspy. His hair was dark, peppered with grey, and slicked back against his head. A beard of the same color painted his face. He was smiling, but in his eyes shone something darker, something sinister. “My, you’re a fucking pretty one.”

Olivia sat unmoving and unwavering in the chair. She met and held his gaze steadily, and this only made the grin on his face widen.

“Where’s our manners? Here, I’ll start. I’m Negan, and I run this little fantasy factory. This,” he leaned forward and picked up the bat, twirling it in his hands, “is Lucille. You are?”

“The bitch who’s been wasting all your resources?” she replied hotly, narrowing her eyes. She leaned back in the chair and even went so far as to cross her legs. Something dangerous flashed in Negan’s eyes.

“You’ve got quite a mouth on you. I fucking like it.” He leaned across the desk, waving the bat for emphasis. “Come now, what’s your fucking name, sweetheart? Don’t make me beg.” Olivia didn’t think for one second that this man would get down on his knees and beg.

“Liv.”

Negan grinned again. “That’s more like it. Now, where’s your little buddy? The one full of fucking holes?”

“He’s dead.” She said it so flatly, so blasé that Negan’s face faltered, but only for a moment. As quickly as it was there, the minor shock was gone, and his expression took on that casual, amused look again.

“Wow, not even a blink. Tell me, were you the one who put the holes in him?”

“I was thinking that was more your area of expertise,” she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest. Negan’s eyes watched the movement, watched as her arms pressed her breasts together and up, so that the creamy flesh just peeked over the neckline of her t-shirt. It didn’t go unnoticed, nor did the way he bit his lip.

She was a gorgeous creature, one Negan wouldn’t mind adding to his harem of wives. She was skinny, but the end of the world was probably to blame, but tall from the looks of those long legs of hers. Despite her slimness, her shirt fit her snugly and her ample breasts seemed to be unaffected by the lack of food. Her dark auburn hair was tied back in a tail with a Dodgers ball cap shoved over her eyes. Her eyes. The clearest hazel he thought he’d ever seen. When she looked at him, he saw a nothingness in her eyes, a vacancy that told him everything he needed to know about her, about who she was.

Slowly he rose from the desk and took two steps around it, propped a slim hip against it. “If I were you, I’d be thinking the same fucking thing. However, if I wanna make a point to people, I don’t use fucking guns.” He rolled Lucille across the desk for emphasis, the barbed wire creating nicks and chips in the dark mahogany wood. Olivia watched it with boredom, but she’d be damned if she wasn’t just a little bit panicked on the inside.

She looked up at him with the same expression of boredom. “Then if it wasn’t you, I have no fucking idea who blew up our entire compound.” The anger in her voice almost surprised him; she’d acted so careless when her companion died. Now he was getting the first sign of real emotion.

“Seems to me you and I may have a common enemy.” Negan ran his fingers over his beard, thinking. Before she could think about it, Olivia leaned forward in the chair just slightly, her interest piqued.

“You know who could have done this?” she asked hastily, her earlier movement giving Negan a bird’s eye view down the front of her shirt. When she caught him staring, she leered and pulled the neck of her t-shirt up. Negan just grinned that unnerving smile again.

“Boys will be boys, eh sweetheart? Now, tell me, how does a fucking sweet piece of ass like you wind up nearly Swiss fucking cheese like your boyfriend?”

Olivia lifted her chin, her face stoic. “He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

Negan’s eyebrows lifted into his hairline. “Well, if it ain’t my fucking lucky day. Anyway, you didn’t answer my fucking question.”

“I don’t know.” She crossed her arms again and bounced her foot. “One moment, everything is routine, I’m doing inventory, then the next it was like the fucking Alamo. Gunfire, a lot of it, screaming, blood, roamers. Matthew and I were the only ones who made it out. Do you know who did this?”

Negan’s jaw clenched. “I have a hunch, and I’ve warned his punk ass what would happen if he fucking fucked with my men again.” He paced in front of the bookshelf again.

“Seems to me your message didn’t get across.” Olivia casually inspected her nails while a grin stretched across Negan’s face.

“Seems you’re fucking-a right, dollface.” He chuckled as a grimace wrinkled her face and she leered up at him. “Guess I’ll have to pay the little prick a personal fucking visit.”

“You feel free. Am I free to go or what?”

The leather of the chair squeaked as Negan sat himself down again. “Now, where would you fucking go? You said you’re the only one left.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I’d find my way. Always have. It’s the one certainty I have in this new world of ours.” Negan tilted his head to the side, regarded her with silent admiration and a fully-piqued interest.

“You know what? I’ve decided I fucking like you. So fucking much, I’ll offer you a room here. Now, keep in fucking mind, anyone who stays at the Sanctuary works for the Sanctuary. Tit-for-fucking-tat, if you will. Everyone’s got a job to do, and there’s plenty of fucking work to go the fuck around. Now, tell me, Liv, and I don’t do this for just fucking anybody, what sort of skills do you possess?” Liv was wary of the way he’d said skills, as if there was some double entendre she was missing. At her hesitance, he grinned again. “I’m giving you pick of the fucking litter, doll.”

“Ammunitions. Or medical,” was her immediately reply. She didn’t miss the slight surprise that passed over Negan’s features. He tilted his head and the gesture made him younger, a little more naïve. She already knew better. Knowing she’d regret it, she followed up with, “I’m good with my hands.”

Negan’s throat nearly went dry, his voice hoarse. “Are you now? Well, I’m sure we can find a fucking use for those hands of yours. Any training?”

“Three years of med school.” Up went his eyebrows into his hairline again. “Before I flunked out.”

“I’ll be fucking damned. You’re just full of surprises. I’m sure Dr. Carson could use the fucking expertise of a former med school student. Useless prick. All right,” Negan slapped his thighs and rose again, “let’s fucking see what we can do about getting you a fucking room. You have any belongings?”

“No. Everything I came with died four floors down.” Negan paused and watched her, his mind turning over and over. She was going to be a tough nut to crack. He plastered the grin onto his face once again.

“Not to worry, doll. We’ve got plenty of shit to fucking go around. Follow me.”

He picked up the bat and swung it onto his shoulder, and then swung the door open wide. Liv stayed two steps behind him as he led her back out into the carpeted hallway and down seven doors. Using Lucille, he knocked three times before shoving open the door and strutting inside.

Olivia looked around. She wasn’t sure what she should have been expecting, but it wasn’t a fully furnished, almost hotel-style, room complete with a fireplace and a bookshelf. The bed was freshly made with plain linens and a couple of throw pillows. There were no windows, but the room had plenty of adequate lighting coming from the ceiling lights as well as a small table lamp next to the bed. Olivia was stunned into silence—they had electricity? —but she kept her face neutral. On the foot of the bed lay a white fluffy robe and an assortment of feminine hygiene products, including body lotion and a razor.

“It ain’t much, but, well, fuck. This is probably the fucking Ritz-Carlton to you, ain’t it?” Negan asked, opening his arms and turning in a circle. He had an arrogant smirk on his face as Olivia moved slowly around the room, taking in the cleanliness and comfort of it. 

“Now, since it looks like you’ve been living in those fucking rags for years, which you very likely fucking have been, let’s see what we can do about finding you some new fucking threads. After you.” Almost gentlemanly, Negan held out his hand towards the door. Olivia watched that sinister something creep back into his eyes as she strode out of the room. 

“Nice set up.” She had to admit it, Negan and his people were set up quite impressively. “Who’d you have to kill for it?”

Negan barked out a laugh. “Man, I fucking like you. Nobody, believe it or fucking not. It was just sitting here, waiting to be taken and used.”

Olivia hummed as they took the narrow staircase down a floor. Negan insisted on walking beside her, putting her in much closer proximity to him than she would have liked. The smell of leather filled her nose, along with something that smelled purely outdoorsy. His shoulder bumped hers every time he stepped down and she scooted closer to the wall. He held the door for her again and she walked through, waited for him to lead the way to commissary.

As he passed, the few people milling about immediately dropped to their knees before him, like servants to a king. Olivia watched them in both curiosity and astonishment. Just who was this guy? She risked a glance at him. He was staring straight ahead, his chin raised high, eating up the attention as his people took a knee.

“So what, you’re like they’re king?” she asked, not without some incredulity. Negan smirked and turned his dark eyes to her.

“Something like that. If we’re fucking honest, princess,” he grinned as she sighed, “I take care of them, and they take care of me. That’s how it works around here. Tit-for-fucking-tat.”

Olivia pursed her lips as the commissary came into view. The room appeared to be a former cafeteria of sorts, with the rolling tables still intact and bins upon bins of clothing were stacked on top. They were organized by gender, size, color, and style, and it reminded Olivia distantly of mall shopping. There were workers with clipboards, marking inventory as they moved from table to table.

“Let’s see,” Negan hummed, lifting a grey shirt out of the first women’s bin. He set down Lucille with the gentleness of a new father and held the garment up to her. Satisfied, he dropped it into her arms and moved on.

He grabbed her a pair of cargo pants that looked like they might be a bit big, so he tossed a belt at her. Then he tossed in some socks and carried a brand new pair of size seven boots by their laces. When they reached the undergarment table, that signature wicked grin split his face and he began to pick through the underwear, choosing first a very risqué pair. Olivia rolled her eyes and pulled them out of his hands, tossing it back into the bin. Lightly shouldering him aside, she settled for a practical pair of black boyshorts, shoving them hastily under the shirt. Negan waggled his eyebrows suggestively, but she chose to ignore it and began to dig for a new bra.

“What are you, about a B-cup?” he asked, trying to get a glimpse of her chest. Olivia pinned him with an ugly glare and pulled instead a C-cup bra out of the bin, ignored him as he grinned and pulled his lip between his teeth. “Nice. We should get you out of that filthy hat too.” He dropped a large hand on her head to pull the cap off. Quick as lightning, she clapped her hand over his in a vice grip, ignoring how warm his skin felt against her. He didn’t resist as she pulled his hand away from her cap, watching her as she readjusted it. He cleared his throat.

“Are you settled then? You can come down and pick what you need whenever, as long as you contribute somewhere else. Tit—”

“For-fucking-tat. Got it,” came her clipped reply. “Think I’ll manage. Thank you for the clothes and the hospitality. I suppose I’ll see you around then.”

She moved to turn away but he curled his hand around her bicep and stopped her. She whipped her head around, staring first at his hand on her arm and then up into his face.

“I should at least walk you to your door like the fucking gentleman I am.” But he removed his hand at the copper blaze in her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re a real Mr. Darcy,” she murmured. “I think I’ll be fine. Thanks again.”

Before Negan had another chance to move, she swept from the cafeteria. He smirked after her, loving the challenge she was presenting to him. She’d break one way or another.

Olivia hurried back to her room, more out of excitement for an actual shower than getting away from Negan. She all but slammed the door to her room closed and turned the lock for good measure and out of habit. She debated shoving a chair underneath the door handle due to Negan’s apparent ignorance of the concept of privacy, but thought better of it and dropped her new clothes onto her bed.  
She cooped up the robe and bathroom amenities and dashed into the bathroom, closing and locking that door as well. She set her robe on the toilet and ran her hands over the towels hanging over the bar next to the shower. Soft as baby’s skin. It reminded Olivia of a hotel she’d stayed in when she and—

 _No, don’t do that to yourself_. She cut those thoughts off at the knee and resumed her survey of the bathroom. Plain, white tiles and a sink with a soap dish and a cup for a toothbrush. A brand new toothbrush, no less, and an unopened tube of toothpaste. She placed the shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and wash cloth in the shower and turned the knob. She half expected the water pressure to be mediocre and the temperature lukewarm. But when she turned the knob and the water streamed out in a steady jet and steaming, she could have fainted then and there.

She quickly unlaced her boots, yanked off her clothing and eagerly stepped under the spray, sighing in content as the hot water did its duty. She stood under the spray for near ten minutes, partially believing she was dreaming. Jostling herself, she dumped a generous amount of shampoo into her palm and rubbed it into her scalp. She emitted another sigh as she felt the shampoo and her nails scraping away layers of dirt, grime, and who knew what else. She rinsed her hair when it squeaked with cleanliness, the water in the bottom of the tub turning near black, and she brushed conditioner into her tresses. She let it sit and put her new toothbrush to good use. With her mouth feeling fresher than it had in months, and her hair clean and soft, Olivia set to work on her skin, using the wash cloth to rub a hefty amount of body wash along her arms, torso, legs. Again the water turned murky as she watched layers of dirt and grime scrape away to reveal creamy skin beneath.

She wasn’t sure how long she stood under the spray, but she didn’t care as she finally tossed her hair in a soft towel and squirted shaving cream into her hands, spreading it on her legs and underarms. The sink quickly filled with unshaved hair and shaving cream. Once finished, she rinsed the sink and plopped the razor into the cup with her toothbrush, capped the shaving cream, and threw the robe on. She smeared lotion on her legs, forgetting how good it felt.

The carpet of her room was soft under her bare feet as she pressed the end of the towel to her face to dry it. Reaching for her new clothes, she paused when she saw the flannel shirt and sweatpants neatly folded on her bed that hadn’t been there before she got in the shower. With catlike reflexes, she reached for the lamp on the table next to the bed, yanking the cord out of the wall with the force. She raised it over her head and turned towards her sitting room, prepared to deck the new intruder.

“Did you have a nice bath?” Negan asked, sitting cross-legged in the chair by the bookshelf. He was thumbing through one of the titles, not looking at her immediately. She relaxed, but only slightly, and glanced at the door. The jingle of keys drew her attention back to him and he finally looked up. “Locked doors don’t mean shit to me, princess.”

Olivia set the lamp back on the table and crossed her arms over her chest. “Thought I got rid of you.”

“Ha. Fat fucking chance, doll. I’m like fucking crazy glue. Thought you could use the pajamas and some dinner, if you’d be so fucking kind to accompany me.”

She started to protest but her damn stomach betrayed her with excellent timing. Negan smirked and balanced the book on the arm of the chair. He straightened to his full height and strode to the door as someone knocked once.

“I had something brought up from the kitchens.” He opened the door and a cart was wheeled in by an older woman who Olivia hadn’t met yet. She handed Negan two plates of what looked like chicken and some vegetables. “Thank you, Madeline.” The woman nodded and wheeled the cart back out. Negan kicked the door shut when she was gone.

“Why don’t you dress and we’ll eat.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to have some privacy for a while.” Olivia wasn’t used to being waited on, she wasn’t about to start getting used to it. A flash of anger flared in Negan’s eyes. She was far from intimidated but backed up her argument. “It’s been a long fucking day, I’m tired, and I’ll admit, I’m ravenous. All I want to do is eat and then sleep. I appreciate the hospitality you’re showing me. But it’s not necessary.”

The anger didn’t move out of Negan’s expression but he nodded, his jaw muscle twitching. He set the plates in his hand on the small side table.

“Double serving. You’re too fucking skinny.” Without another word, he stormed out the room, the door slamming shut behind him. Olivia pinched the bridge of her nose, sighed, and quickly threw on the pajamas left for her. She towel-dried her hair and hung the towel on the hook on the bathroom door.

She wiped both plates clean. Her stomach felt sufficiently full and between that, her shower, and her earlier interaction with Negan, she was completely exhausted. She didn’t wait a moment more to turn off the light, climb into bed, and fall into the most peaceful sleep she thought she’d ever had.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter isn't as long, but it's tense. I'm trying to pace things appropriately, as I have a lot of ideas for this story, and I don't want everything to happen too quickly. Nor do I want you guys to be bored with filler chapters. The less filler I have the better. Please review and let me know what you think.

It took Olivia a few attempts to get her eyes open. Having no windows in her room, there was no sunlight to wake her up. When she did manage to open her eyes, her eyelids felt heavy with exhaustion the need for more sleep. But incessant knocking on her door prevented her from burrowing her head and falling catatonic again. Instead, she forced herself out of bed and walked over to the door, already having a hunch as to who it could be.

She was fairly surprised to see Dwight behind her door, and not Negan.

“Boss says up and at ‘em, sunshine. Time to put you to work.” He pushed into her room without waiting for an invite and dropped his tall frame into the chair Negan sat in the night before. He folded his long fingers into a steeple in front of his face. “I’m to escort you to breakfast and then to the munitions yard for training.”

Olivia pursed her lips. “Very well. Let me change.” 

She did so quickly. The pants were slightly too large, but the belt help drastically. The top fit loosely, which Olivia was slightly grateful for. Pulling her hair back, she placed her Dodgers cap on her head and pulled her hair through the loop in the back. The boots fit perfectly and she laced them up tightly.

“Shall we?” she asked, as she emerged from the bathroom. Dwight followed her out.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked her as they walked down the hallway to the stairwell. Olivia glanced sideways at him. He seemed nice enough, and he was the reason she was even here.

“Like the dead,” she replied, and a small smile made his mouth turn upwards.

“That’s how it was for me, when I first came to the Sanctuary.”

“How long have you been here?” They took the stairwell down to the first floor, and instead of heading towards the double doors where Matthew died, they went the other way. Her new boots squeaked on the clean tile floor.

Dwight sighed and tucked a lock of his hair behind his ear. “Lost count. I was one of the first people Negan took in though. Me and…my wife.” His gaze fell.

“Oh, I’m…sorry. Did she die before or after...?”

Dwight swung his head to her, giving her a good view of that ugly scar. “Oh, Sherry, she… She’s not dead. She’s, well, I guess it doesn’t matter.” He ran a hand over his hair and Olivia narrowed her eyes slightly. Ultimately she decided it was none of her business, and so she let it go.

They exited the building and turned the corner, into a large yard. Folding tables had been set up and ammunition had been laid out. Spare magazines, cleaner, bullets, not to mention the numerous guns of all kinds – assault rifles, revolvers, handguns, shotguns, hunting rifles. Men and women alike were cleaning and disassembling them, then reassembling them in quick succession.

“Where did you find them all?” Olivia murmured. Dwight looked over at her and smirked.

“Negan. We follow him, and he takes care of us. Now, the way this works is, each person is assigned a job. Depending on how well you do your job, you have the chance to rack up points. Get enough points and you can trade them in for an extra ration of food, medication, whatever you need. You do a good job, you earn points. You don’t do a good job, you lose them.”

_Tit-for-fucking-tat._

Dwight stood across the table from her and picked up an M4, stared at it a moment, and then tossed it to Olivia, who had to throw her arms out quickly in order to catch it.

“Let’s see what you got, new girl. Take it apart,” he said.

Olivia stared at the weapon in her hands with a bit of uncertainty, turning it over in her hands. She at least had the common sense to switch the safety to on. Then she let her hands explore the weapon and within moments had figured out enough of it to pull the gun apart. She laid the pieces on the table for Dwight’s inspection.

“Not bad,” came another voice instead. Olivia and Dwight looked towards the source as Negan stepped out from around the corner, Lucille resting on his shoulder. He had that nearly-permanent smirk on his face and no trace of his anger from the night before was anywhere to be found. He sidled up to the two of them as everyone around them obediently dropped to their knees. “Now, put it back together. Double time.”  
Olivia swallowed and picked up one of the pieces, easily fitting it back to where it belonged. She stumbled a couple times on the smaller pieces and Negan leaned his head closer to her to watch her, his eyes crinkling with amusement. Finally, Olivia set the reassembled gun on the table.

He tsked, “We’re gonna have to fix that, sweetheart. Can’t fucking fight back if you can’t get your fucking gun assembled, can you?”

Olivia met his stare evenly. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to take an assault rifle apart.”

“Which reminds me,” Negan circled her, dropping Lucille to his side to swing her absently, “where did you fucking learn how to take apart a fucking M4?”

She pursed her lips, looking down at the weapon on the table. “My dad was a gun fanatic. Kept quite the collection. He taught me everything I know about munitions. He had a couple of these puppies locked away in a safe, and he wouldn’t let me touch them until I was eighteen.”

Negan hummed. “Doesn’t sound like a half bad guy. Speed that shit up, doll.” With that, he swung Lucille back onto her perch on his shoulder and strode away. Everyone, aside from Dwight and Olivia, got up off their knees and resumed his or her business.

Dwight raised his eyebrows at her. “That’s about the best compliment you’re gonna get from him until you can do it in the time it takes him to blink.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Boss said you’d chosen medical too. Med school?” Olivia nodded and Dwight whistled low. “Impressive. Tell you what, today, you’ll work here,” he called to a larger man, who seemed to have the personality of a teddy bear and came stomping over, “under Griffin. He’ll direct you more on what happens here. Griff, Olivia, new girl.”  
Griffin smiled the kind of grin that lit up his entire face. When he spoke, his voice was deep, but Olivia found in it an odd sense of comfort. “Shouldn’t be too hard to get her set up. Right this way, little lady.”

Dwight began to walk backwards to handle his own affairs. “I’ll come find you for dinner at six. Enjoy your day, Liv.”

Olivia gave a small wave and then turned her full attention to Griffin as he ran down the schedule for the ammunitions workers.

Her arms were sore by the time Dwight met up with her for dinner. Much of the day consisted of her moving arms and ammunition from crates to tables to trucks and back again, with practice assembling and disassembling a variety of guns. The men had a supply run coming up and all weapons needed to be emptied, cleaned, and reloaded and then loaded up into the toolboxes that were to be brought on the run. Griffin was impressed with her attention to detail and her assurance that each weapon would be flawless should it need to be used. Griff had assured her that very rarely did they resort to guns; if there were any roamers that needed dispatching, they tended to use melee weapons to reduce the chances of drawing more.  
She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Her baseball cap had helped to keep the brunt of the summer sun off her face, but it was still hot as all hell and her new clothes clung to her frame, drenched in sweat. Dwight was waiting by the entrance into the building, leaning against the bricks with his eyes to the ground. His head snapped as he heard her approach.

“Shit, you look like hell,” he commented with a lopsided smile. Olivia tugged her shirt away from her body to allow for at least some ventilation.

“Not used to working in the sun like this. It’s rough. Thinking a quick dinner, a shower, and then lights out.” They stepped into the coolness of the building.

“It does take some getting used to, but everyone pulls their weight around here. I don’t think it went completely unnoticed that you definitely did.” He jerked his chin and Olivia followed his gaze to see Negan striding down the hall, with that arrogant swagger he possessed, a grin splitting his face.

“Glad to see the newbie made it through day one,” he said, his voice echoing down the empty hallway.

“Griff says she’s taken a shine to ammunitions,” Dwight quipped. Negan turn an approving eye to her and slapped a large hand onto her slim shoulder.

“That’s what I like to fucking hear. Y’know, I watched you a bit out there, dollface. Keep up the fucking good work and maybe I’ll consider taking you out on runs.”  
Olivia was mildly surprise and briefly let it show on her face to Negan’s delight. “Really? Well, thanks. Uh, well, if you’ll both excuse me I have a meeting with the shower and the food court.” With a nod of approval from Negan, she ducked away and to the stairwell.

\- -

Over the next week, Olivia bounced between munitions training and manning the medical ward with Dr. Carson; since injuries were at an all-time low, to her relief, Dr. Carson spent free time with her showing her how to inventory medical supplies and medication. The Saviors kept a strict chart of who had what condition and who received what medication and when. The medications were locked away in a storage cabinet and only Dr. Carson and Negan himself held the only two keys.

Speaking of the leader of the Saviors, he’d been favoring spending time with Olivia whenever he could. He seemed to be fond of overlooking the daily chores throughout his compound overall, but he spent quite a bit of his time watching Olivia as she packed weapons for future supply runs or observed Dr. Carson giving a patient a physical exam. He’d stand outside the exam room and watch her, her brow furrowed in concentration as Dr. Carson demonstrated and then promptly had her try it hands-on. Olivia might have said it bothered her, but she wasn’t completely confident in that assessment. To be frank, she wasn’t confident in how she felt about Negan in general. He had his good days and his bad days; he was hot and cold, one day smiling and cursing up a storm, the next he had a glare that could put Sasquatch six feet under. Fortunately, Olivia had managed to keep herself off his bad side since that first night at the Sanctuary and she’d refused to have dinner with him.

Olivia found herself settling in quite nicely into Sanctuary life. She’d made sort-of friends out of Dwight and Griffin and often ate dinner and spent free time with them. They never divulged personal information of ‘Before’, and for that she was thankful. She’d learned to cope and move on and block out the painful things she’d experienced, pushed them so far out of her mind that she wasn’t sure she’d completely remember details. She learned more about Dwight’s former wife, Sherry, and the fate she’d met. When Dwight first told her, her first thought had been, ‘I’d rather be dead’. She couldn’t imagine spending her days locked away inside, forced into skimpy lingerie, and throwing herself at a man who fully believed he was the king of the new world order.

Dwight justified it by telling her that Negan took really good care of his wives, and if she was lucky, that she might have the opportunity to become one.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” he’d said one evening over dinner. Olivia allowed one corner of her mouth to lift.

“Oh yeah? And how’s that?”

“Like a tiger who’s locked onto his prey.”

Olivia hesitated and then muttered, “That’s comforting.”

“I mean it, Liv. And if he comes to you, you’d do best to say yes. He takes real good care of them, but he won’t force you if you say no. He ain’t that kind of man.”

Olivia hummed, pretending to think it over. The last thing she wanted to think about in this new world was whether her leader wanted to get into her pants.

“Well, time will tell, I guess.”

Olivia saw her first medical emergency the next day. While out on patrol, one of Negan’s men had stupidly gotten himself into a hairy situation with some roamers and dove through a hole in a chain-link fence and sliced up his thigh in the process. He’d been carried in by four other men, and Negan was hot on their heels, demanding to know how one man could be so fucking careless.

Dr. Carson and Olivia jumped into action, throwing rubber gloves on to protect the man from any chance of infection. Carson picked up the surgical scissors and cut away the man’s jeans. The gash was located on the inside of his thigh, and how he’d even managed to accomplish such an injury was beyond her. But she focused on her work, stepping in when blood rushed from the veins in his legs and Carson hesitated. The din in the room was distracting, especially with Negan yelling insults and criticism, his booming voice overpowering everyone else in the room.

She felt a head rush coming on and, before she had one more moment to think, bellowed, “Everybody shut the fuck up!”

The room stilled immediately, the only sounds coming from the man on the table as he writhed in pain. The sheets he lay on were soaked through with rich red blood. Olivia hadn’t needed to look up as she felt one set of eyes on her in particular, burning holes into her forehead. She risked a glance up and saw Negan, standing above everyone else, with a terrifying glare in his eyes.

Heaving out a breath, she held up her gloved hands, also soaked with blood. “I need everyone to go. Carson and I can’t concentrate. Now we’re going to do everything we can to save his life, but I need everyone to clear out of here, right now.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, and then Negan’s booming voice again, yelling, “You heard her! Everyone fucking out!” She’d never seen people move faster, and the room was quickly emptied. Only Negan stayed behind and Olivia almost decided against saying what she did next.

“You too, Negan.” Carson froze, his eyes moving from one person to the other, and he took a visible step backwards to give them room. Negan’s eyes darkened as his temper flared and Olivia held up her hands again. “Carson and I can’t do our jobs well enough if we can’t move around the table. And, you know, you’re kind of a big guy.” She was worried her attempt at humor wouldn’t succeed and waited with bated breath.

Negan read her well though and he blew his temper out with a heavy sigh. His shoulders sagged as he cast a forlorn look at his comrade on the table, set his jaw, and looked at her again.

“Save him. Otherwise it’s your ass.” The threat rang loud and clear, and it was all Olivia could do to nod. Negan turned his large frame and stomped out the door and down the hallway, people dodging out of the way as he walked off his rage.

The drywall bit into his knuckles as his fist collided with the wall of his office, but he’d barely felt the impact through his ire. Just who the fuck was she to order him around? Granted, the room had been small but what kind of leader was he if he didn’t see his men through each of their ordeals? Especially if one of their lives were on the line? He paced in front of the bookshelf, irritated with himself. He’d obeyed her, for Christ’s sake. Why had he done such a stupid fucking thing? He had to punish her somehow, make her realize the error she’d made.

He’d have to save it for later. Right now, she was busy saving that man’s life. Feeling only slightly calmer, he walked out of his office and made his way back down to the medical wing. Olivia was leaning against the wall outside the exam room, staring at the tile floor. She looked up when she heard his boots and he didn’t miss the small reflection of fear on her features. She quickly masked it, though, and instead plastered a look of sympathy on her face. He hadn’t made it.

A few of the Saviors were standing by, waiting to speak with Olivia. They snapped to attention when Negan jerked his chin in a “come here” motion, gathered around him and Olivia.

“Stupid fuck didn’t make it,” he said coarsely, causing Olivia’s eyes to furrow. “Get the body, put him on the fence.” Nodding, the men entered the exam room and emerged a moment later with the now dead man’s body.

When they returned, and received no further orders from Negan, he turned his rage to her. She’d inhaled rapidly, and then his hand was clamped around the back of her neck, pulling her down the hallway in the direction from which his men had just come.

“Let’s you and me have a little chat.” His voice was far from jovial, and apprehension set into Olivia’s body.

He shoved her into the sunlight and against the railing overlooking a yard she hadn’t yet seen. Her eyes scanned the property, and the numerous roamers ambling around tied to chains and impaled on poles.

“This is what happens to the people who no longer have any use for me.” He angled his face close to hers, his hand still tight around her neck as he forced her forward, over the railing. His jaw was clenched, the muscle dancing beneath the skin. Olivia felt a surge of fear, an icy shot through her veins. Her knuckles gripped the railing until they turned white. Negan’s body was pressed up against hers, pressing her further into the rail until she thought she might bruise. He kept her trapped, with the one hand on her neck, and his other blocking her way out on the other side.

“This is what happens when people step out of line and don’t do their jobs. You failed today, Olivia.” Dread settled in her stomach as she suddenly recognized the man she’d attempted to save—only now, he was a roamer on a chain, snarling and gargling and ambling along the fence. “You didn’t do your job, and that’s a problem for me. I lost a man—sort of. But that means less people on supply runs. That means less of everything for everyone. How am I supposed to lead a colony if I can’t spare the men to find supplies? Hm? How?”

“I don’t know,” her voice was strangled, and not because his hand was around her neck. She licked her lips as Negan pressed her harder against the railing, making her wince.

“Not only did you fail at saving my man, you had the nerve to order me around in front of my men. Now what happens if someone else decides to try the same thing? What if someone else decides to stand with him? I’ll be facing a riot. See, I can’t have that because that’s a real fucking inconvenience for me. For that, you need to be punished. Do you want to work the fence with them? Hm? I’m sure we can find a place for you out there. Or maybe…” The hand at the back of her neck moved around to her throat and as he squeezed he jerked her head back, forcing her to stare upwards into his face. His other arm wound tightly around her waist, again squeezing until she was short of breath. His fingers dug into her skin and she tried, and reined, to rein in her panic as her air supply was cut short.

They stood like that for a while—it seemed like eons to Olivia, as she wriggled against him in an attempt to break free. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself not to cry out of fear. She felt herself getting lightheaded, felt the blood rushing to her face as Negan stared down at her with a fury she’d never seen. His jaw was clenched so tightly she wondered if he’d end up cracking his teeth. Right as black spots danced across her vision, Negan pulled his hands away and broke away from her. She sucked in a breath, dropping to her knees as blood returned to her body. She panted, felt herself trembling with fear, and coughed at the sudden rush of air back into her lungs.

“Do not disappoint me again,” were Negan’s parting words as he left her on the concrete, struggling to breath. Her fingers clasped her throat tenderly; she winced, positive there would be bruises there in the morning.

When she’d regained her breath and most of her composure, she shakily rose to her full height and went back inside and up to her room. She passed Dwight in the stairwell and he immediately took notice of her glassy eyes and red throat. He frowned in sympathy.

“He’s got rules and it’s everyone’s duty to abide by them. Don’t cover up the bruises. He’ll punish you again,” was all he said before he continued on his way down the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you to everyone who left kudos, comments, and followed this story. I just wanted to mention that this story, for the time being is somewhat AU. I have a loose plan for where I want this story to go and it may or may not end up being canon. Just a fair warning. Also a warning, this chapter features a graphic depiction of violence (which, sick little me over here, actually enjoys writing). Enjoy!

_Drowning in our own debris_  
Fool our thoughts as though we're free  
Close our eyes so we can see  
The depth of all we mean to be  
If only in my eyes

He hadn’t slept much the night before, and neither had Sherry. He’d probably roughed her up a little more than he should have, but he was livid and Sherry could take it. She lay beside him now, naked and most likely bruised between her thighs, but she slept soundly, desperate to catch up on the hours she’d lost the night before. He didn’t normally make a habit of keeping them with him overnight, but after their romps the night before, he let it go as she caved in to satiation and exhaustion.

Now he lay in bed, still naked and staring at the ceiling, his mind still fuzzy with rage. He was now down a man, and he needed a replacement. But all of the men that came to his mind didn’t seem to fit the bill. Alex had been an asset to his team, adept in scavenging and getting shit done, despite his lack of common sense, and he’d gotten himself killed. Which brought him to another problem.

He’d seen the defeat in Olivia’s eyes as she stood in the hall, waiting to deliver the bad news to him personally and he’d promptly taken action and punished her. Not nearly as badly as he’d wanted to, as badly as he probably should have, and he wasn’t able to put his finger on why he hadn’t punished her more severely. And that, alone, sent another surge of frustration and rage coursing through him. Growling deep in his throat, he woke Sherry with a rough shake of her shoulder. She only had time to emit a sleepy groan before Negan was atop her, resuming their activities from the night prior.

When he was sure most of his rage was gone—he kept some in reserve all the time, after all—he quietly but forcefully kicked Sherry out of his bed. She cast him a sympathetic glance on her way out the door, her clothes tucked into her arms. He rolled out of the bed finally, dressing in a pair of black jeans, a black t-shirt, and his signature boots and leather jacket. Lucille was resting on the nightstand beside his bed, and he lifted her gently, running his fingers along the wood and barbed wire. She was thirsty, he could feel it.

“Soon, my love,” he muttered to her. He laid her gently on his shoulder, her perch, and with long strides he exited the room.

He dined in the cafeteria, alone, and to the surprise of the early risers who were already present. He’d almost always taken breakfast in his room, but it had felt stuffy and small in there, and he’d needed to get out. Once he finished, he headed out to oversee the day, the eyes of his followers on his back the entire time. Normal conversation resumed when he was gone.

He walked the fence surrounding the Sanctuary. His people were hard at work, though they eyed him carefully as he passed. They feared him; he could see it in their eyes every time he looked at one of them. They hung their heads and hunched their shoulders, trying to appear smaller before him. Some days he wished a man would have the balls to stand up to him the way Olivia insisted on doing. At least then he would have an excuse to bash someone’s brains in. Lucille didn’t see action all that often, and she grew cranky when her thirst for blood wasn’t met. Instead, he was stuck with a prissy redheaded doctor who had yet to learn her places in the ranks. Maybe a day on the fence would teach her, he mused with a smirk. He’d have to consider it more.

The sun was nearly fully risen and he could tell right off the bat it would be another scorcher. He’d be sure to tend to most of his indoor duties today. He stopped as he reached the walker yard, watched them for a while as they aimlessly circled around one another. The closest one to him, dressed in a dirty pair of white sweats with the letter ‘C’ sprayed in orange spray paint, turned its head at the smell of approaching flesh. This drew the attention of the one beside it, and then the one beside that one, and the one beside that one, until they had all turned to press their ugly decayed faces to the chain-link fence, clawing at it in a sad attempt to reach him.

He squinted at them, observing their apparent herd mentality. Soon the entire yard was drawn to him, but they could only go so far on their chains. He glanced up to the staircase where he’d had Olivia the night before, his hands around her neck. She’d been brave up front, but he’d seen the fear in her eyes, watched it swell into terror before she shut them. He had to admit it felt good to have his body against hers, pressing her so hard into the railing he was sure she’d be sporting bruises on her hips. The thought of her hips, and the bruises he’d put there, made his pants twitch, regardless of the overnight action he’d had. For half a second he had considered making her one of his wives, but he’d noticed the streak of defiance in her, and decided against it. His wives were all compliant little softies who both feared and respected him. No, Olivia would have to be broken before she could be a wife. She was far too confident in her continuous defiance of him, and he intended to break that streak by whatever means necessary.

* * *

 

When she woke the next morning, Olivia had half a mind to go against what Dwight had advised. The bruises circled her neck in a pretty shade of dark purple like a tattooed necklace she hadn’t wished for. She touched her fingertips to them lightly, wincing when they ached in protest. She rotated her neck, testing them, and still they throbbed painfully.

Despite her lapse the day before, after having disrespected Negan in front of his men, she’d been doing well at the munitions yard, racking up enough points to get herself a new shirt and a pair of pants. She’d only wished the shirt had a higher collar, but as she tugged it down over herself, she frowned at the open neck, leaving her new set of purple pearls on full display to everyone. With a lift of her chin, she threw her doubts and insecurity to the wind, shoved on her Dodgers cap, and left her room to begin her day.

She kept her eyes forward as she passed others in the hall; almost immediately they began to whisper, reminding Olivia of the catty girls she went to high school with. Her posture remained rigid and strong, defiant. She knew she’d stepped out of line to Negan, but the man was going to need to try a whole lot harder if he intended to break her spirit.

Griffin didn’t speak to her much, eying her bruises with a mix of sympathy and fear. If Olivia was causing trouble with Negan, he wanted no part of it. Misery loved its company, or however the saying went. Dwight kept mostly to himself as well, choosing to go out on a supply run rather than eat his lunch with her. She supposed he felt the same as Griffin had, though with a tad more sympathy. After all, his comment to her in the stairwell the night before seemed to her to be a tip in order to keep her safe and alive—and on Negan’s good side.

She learned as she worked that the men were preparing for what she assumed was another supply run. They inventoried weapons and handed them out, but she took careful notice that they were taking mostly the heavy-hitters—assault rifles, shotguns, and enough spare ammo to outlast a war. This was odd for a routine supply run, and she almost asked Griffin what was up. However, he’d been purposefully avoiding her gaze all morning, so she bit her tongue. Even the men going on the run seemed amped up, especially Simon, who she hadn’t seen much of since arriving at the Sanctuary. She wasn’t too disappointed by it, as Negan’s second-in-command, as she’d come to learn, had a penchant for snide remarks towards everyone who wasn’t high up on Negan’s roster. Her patience for him had quickly run out and she forewent any possible niceties—she still showed him respect (even though the prick hardly deserved it) but only because she feared the possibility of Negan finding out.

She froze, barely believing she’d used _Negan_ and _feared_ in the same train of thought, though she’d be damned if she’d ever admit it aloud. Mentally shaking herself, she resumed her work of packing up rifles into the beds of pickups.

Her waist protested as she bent to lift more rifles into the truck. She hadn’t looked this morning, too distracted by the ring of bruises in the shape of fingerprints that decorated her neck, but she pictured a few bruises around her hips where Negan had pushed her into the rail, his long body keeping her trapped. He had been solid as he stood behind her, and if not for the brutality of his hands on her neck, literally choking the life from her, she would have found it almost erotic. But he was Negan and he had hurt her; however, her mind had refused to let go of how his body melded against hers.

She was forcefully snapped from her reverie as she was nudged in the shoulder. She jerked her head up in time to see Negan himself striding purposefully towards her, the lines in his face revealing his already pent-up frustration. She dropped to her knee, internally shaming herself for bowing so quickly. Lucille was at her perch, but he dropped her to his side as he came to a halt before her, ordered her to stand, picked up an assault rifle that she’d just loaded, and shoved it back into her arms. She stared up at him questioningly and fearfully. He leaned in close to her.

“You wanna mouth off so quickly? You’re about to learn that that’s a huge no-no. You’re coming with us.” He straightened and addressed the rest of the group. “Everyone mount the fuck up!”

People began moving, all except Olivia, who stood rooted to the spot. Negan just glared at her and grabbed her roughly by the upper arm.

“You’re riding with me.” He led her around to the front of the building, where a sleek black pick-up sat idle but running. He shoved her into the passenger side door and stomped around to the driver’s side. She hesitantly opened the passenger side door and climbed in, turning to buckle her seatbelt. She set the gun in her lap, heavy and unfamiliar.

Negan rolled his eyes. “If I was gonna kill you, it wouldn’t be in my nice fucking truck.” He carefully laid Lucille across his lap and put the truck in drive. He sped maniacally out of the gate and kept the pace as his men followed behind him.

Olivia sat rigidly in the passenger seat, swearing at herself when she twitched when he lifted a hand to turn the radio on. A sick smirk creased his forehead.

“You nervous, doll? Good. You’re learning.”

“Where are we going?” She regretted asking the question as soon as it was out of her mouth, but she couldn’t take it back now. While a part of her was still standing strong, wanting to fight back against Negan’s iron fist, the other part of her was quickly learning that he was not a man to be trifled with. He was hard and cold and downright brutal, not to mention he possessed a hairpin-trigger temper that could spin heads one-hundred-eighty degrees.

Negan’s smirk melted into a regular smile and for a brief moment Olivia thought that it suited him much better.

“Let’s just say we’ve had a little fucking problem come up with one of our employees. I hate getting involved but someone has to make sure these pricks do what they’re told.”

Olivia was left to ponder that statement as they continued to drive at an alarming speed. She watched the landscape rush by in a green and brown blur. Any roamers they passed were lost in the landscape, abandoned to meander behind the vehicles with no chances whatsoever of catching up. She tried not to listen as Negan began to softly sing along with the classic rock playing the CD player, forced herself away from the thought that he had a nice voice—when he wasn’t using it to hurt or scare people. She leaned her forehead on the window, and the movement gave Negan a full view of her purpled neck.

A minor stab of...what was that? Guilt? Negan didn’t feel guilty. For anything. But as his eyes trailed across her throat, playing connect-the-dots with the bruises, he felt it. It was unwelcome and unfamiliar, but it was there, staring him in the face. Without thinking he slowly reached across the truck to tenderly touch one of the purple spots, and the action caused Olivia to startle. She knocked his hand away, eyes wild with fear as she pressed herself against the side of the truck, leaning away from him.

There was a brief moment where the two just stared at one another in tense silence, waiting.

Negan was the first to break and quickly slapped that smirk on his face again, acting like nothing was out of the ordinary, like he hadn’t just initiated contact— _gentle_ contact—with her. “You’re wound like a fucking top, dollface. You need a good uncorking.”

Olivia pinned him with a glare, fire blazing in her eyes. “Don’t touch me,” she seethed, clapping a hand consciously to her neck.

Negan huffed, “Your loss. I’m pretty good in the sack. I’d get you un-fucking-corked pretty damn fast.”

Olivia fought off the blush creeping up her neck at his vulgarity and turned back to glare out the window, choosing to ignore him for the remainder of the ride.

She tuned back in when the truck slowed and turned onto a dirt road, ambled along, and then slowed to a stop in front of a massive wooden gate. Olivia watched men run along the top of the wall that stretched out on either side of driveway; they were carrying rifles. The gates opened not a moment later and the truck rolled through, the others following behind. Negan and his men parked the trucks in a circle in a massive dirt clearing and Olivia took a few minutes to look around. The inhabitants of this compound were bunked in tents—and there were tons of them. They stretched across the open space as far as her eyes could see, colorful mounds of fabric that were beginning to wiggle with signs of life.

She stepped out of the vehicle as Negan did and, though he scared her, she still stood closer to him. Her wariness around these new people trumped whatever negative feelings she harbored for the leader of the Saviors.

Though there were perhaps a hundred tents, only about fifteen people stepped forward to meet the Saviors. Negan tossed Lucille on his shoulder and looked around at the group. An older man in his forties moved forward to address the Saviors; it didn’t take much for Olivia to deduce he was the leader of his own group.

Negan furrowed his eyebrows. “Well, what the fuck happened to the rest of you?”

The man in front of him cleared his throat and his gaze bounced down. He was scared. Olivia could tell by the beads of sweat on his forehead and the way his hands trembled.

“Roamers got in, about a month back. Took about thirty of us with them.” The man’s voice didn’t waver as he slowly met Negan’s gaze. “We know we’re behind this month, but we’ve just lost a lot of people and well—” Negan had held up a hand, stopping him.

“Now, Bill,” he said, and Olivia’s back stiffened as she recognized his tone, “I don’t need excuses. What I need is half your fucking shit. So, I can take half of what you got now or you pay the price.” She watched the stand-off between Negan and the stranger, her mind moving a mile a minute to process what she was hearing. Obviously, there was some kind of deal struck between the two communities, but at what price?

The man’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have it. Beth gave birth not too long ago and she’s been sick. Everything we have has been going to her.” His voice was thick with emotion and Olivia felt the atmosphere growing rapidly colder—or maybe that was the dread sitting in the pit of her stomach.

Negan sighed and rested a hand on the man’s shoulder. “So, you’re telling me half of your shit, also known as my shit, went to feed the poor pregnant woman, is that right? That’s what I’m to understand?”

Soberly, Bill nodded and looked down. “I know we owe you, but if we can just make it up next month—”

Negan cut him off again as he pushed away, Lucille resting menacingly on his shoulder. He stroked his beard, riddled with greys, as he paced back and forth in front of Bill and the others. Olivia waited.

Finally he sighed again. “Simon,” he barked, “bring me the fucker in the camo jacket. Put him on his knees.” Simon moved forward as the people of the new community began to yell and some even started to cry. A young man was brought forward, looking to be a former Army Reserves soldier, and shoved to his knees in front of Negan. His eyes were glassy with tears as he stared up at him. Lucille came down to rest at Negan’s side.

“You know, Bill, you guys do this to your fucking selves. I try to be fair, I take care of roamers for you, and then you screw me out of our deal. You lose people, I get it, I do. I’ve lost people. It sucks and it’s hard but rules are rules. And Lucille, well, she is a stickler for the fucking rules. Nobody moves a fucking muscle.”

To Olivia’s horror, she watched as Negan grasped Lucille with both hands and raised her high over his head. The bat came down on the young man’s head with a sickening crack, splattering blood all over, including onto Olivia’s shirt. She jumped backwards, clapping a hand over her mouth as her jaw dropped in terror. She stumbled backwards, tripped over her own feet and hit the dirt as Negan raised his arms for another hit. People were screaming around her, crying for the carnage to stop, but nobody moved. Blood and brain matter flew in all directions, splattering Negan’s front and the dirt. The young man, hopefully now long dead, fell forward and hit the ground face first, but Negan didn’t stop. He drove the bat down over and over again to the rhythm of bone snapping and crunching, the squelching of blood. Olivia wasn’t sure she’d get the sound out of her head. She held in her scream, though it fought like hell to tear out of her throat. She was stunned and stiff, sitting in the dirt as Negan continued his brutal assault.

It was eerily still as Negan finally stopped. The man’s head was nothing more than a bloody pile of brain and skull fragments in the dirt. Lucille was dripping red as Negan breathed heavily, bent at the waist to catch his breath. The people around her were crying, looking away from the body, staring at Negan with a horror that mirrored Olivia’s own. As Negan straightened, his eyes found hers, and she couldn’t hold back the look of horror, of disgust, of betrayal, and of disappointment all rolled into one.

Negan found himself growing angry again as he watched Olivia’s eyes change from one emotion to another in a matter of seconds. The look she gave him was one he’d been expecting; what he hadn’t been expecting was his own reaction to it. For the first time in his life, Negan was disappointed with himself. She was staring at him with such horror, such shock that he wasn’t sure how to process it. Shaking himself, and reminding himself who he fucking was, he jerked Lucille, causing blood to paint the dirt with a red constellation. He turned to Simon and the men.

“Get their shit and move out.”

Negan turned back to Olivia as she sat in the dirt, still shell-shocked from what she had witnessed. The men moved throughout the camp, looking for any supplies they could give up. Many of them were still crying, not believing that things could get any worse. Others had resigned themselves to the situation and let it happen. Her hand had moved away from her gaping mouth to settle on her throat, right over the bruises from his fingertips. She was staring wide-eyed at the body of the young soldier, whose head had been turned to pudding.

Negan stormed to his truck and shoved himself roughly up against the side, bending at the waist to try and process his own mind. He had to show her who he was—he _had_ to. She wouldn’t get it, wouldn’t understand unless he showed her. And show her, he did. His knuckles were white as he clenched them on his jeans, Lucille hanging limply in his other hand. She was still dripping with blood, and for the first time in he didn’t know how long, he felt mildly disgusted by the sight.

But he didn’t put Lucille down. It wasn’t her fault she’d been so thirsty.

The sound of retching made him lift his head and look over the bed of the pick-up. Olivia had moved onto her hands and knees and was emptying her stomach into the dirt. Though the angle gave him the perfect view of her ass, he pushed the thought aside and rested Lucille on the edge of the pickup bed. He slowly made his way over to her as the men began loading the trucks up with a sad amount of supplies.

Negan crouched down beside Olivia, resting on his calves. He reached out to try and lay a hand on her back, but she shoved him away.

“Don’t touch me,” she said, repeating her earlier warning. Her voice was hoarse from the vomiting. Negan ignored her and began to haul her to her feet. She struggled against him, nearly hitting the dirt as her knees gave out. She was tired, hot, but most of all, disgusted. Her stomach was still rolling and her head had begun to pound. “I said don’t touch me.”

When she swayed, Negan effortlessly scooped her under her legs and lifted her against his chest, headed towards the truck. She still struggled, but her energy was quickly draining. He opened the door with the hand under her legs and eased her into the passenger seat. Then he reached behind the seat and withdrew his canteen, unscrewing the top and holding it up to her mouth. She tried to push it away but his patience was wearing thin and he tipped her head back and slowly poured water into her mouth. She sputtered and coughed, pushed on his shoulders.

“You need to drink, Olivia. You’re dehydrated and exhausted. Drink, goddamn it.” She grudgingly took the canteen from him and emptied it, shoving it back into his hands. She turned to face forward in the seat, quite ready to go back to the Sanctuary and hole herself up in her room. She held her head in her hands and almost missed the fact that Negan had used her name.

He stomped around to the driver’s side, saw a bloodied Lucille sitting on the bed. With a sigh he gently picked her up, whispering softly to her as he wrapped her in a cloth from his back seat, laid her tenderly on the leather as if she were a new baby. Then he angled his tall frame into the driver’s seat. He pointedly kept his eyes away from Olivia, who was cowering on her side of the vehicle. She was huddled within herself, her feet on the seat with her face shoved in her knees. Negan frowned and turned the engine over. The trucks filed out of the community one after another until the gates closed forlornly behind them.

The ride back to the Sanctuary was hauntingly silent; he’d left the radio off and only the hum of the engine was heard within the cab of the truck. He didn’t have any words for her. He’d never been good at the whole comfort thing, choosing instead to ignore the problem until it went away. He could have told her that that’s how the new world was—how _his_ new world was. It was harsh and brutal and heartless. It was kill or be killed. Fear the dead, fight the living. Tomorrow was never a guarantee unless it was made so. And Negan made sure there was a tomorrow not only for himself, but for the people he’d taken in. He wasn’t a monster; a shitty person maybe, but he wasn’t a monster. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel at the same time he heard it. It was small, and so quiet he wasn’t sure he really had, but then it came again and he was positive it wasn’t an illusion.

A small sniffle from the other side of the truck. He loathed the sudden drop of his stomach as Olivia sniffled again. Was she really crying? If it was one Negan couldn’t deal with, it was crying women. He hadn’t been able to console his wife when she was alive and he had no fucking idea how he should go about it now. So he didn’t do anything. He decided to let her have her space and her moment.

Except his fucking mouth didn’t have the same idea.

“Suck it up, buttercup.” Internally he cringed as she flinched. “This is how the world works now. It ain’t all sunshine and rainbows anymore. People are dangerous and you need to establish yourself at the top so that those below know where they stand.”

Olivia slowly raised her head but refused to look at him. He could blatantly tell, however, that her eyes were red and glassy. She hastily wiped her face, rubbing her hand on her pants.

“You’re despicable.”

Normally he would have grinned and made some smart-ass comment but instead he just felt hollow. And he realized she was right. And that just fucking pissed him off. So he silently seethed all the way back to the Sanctuary.

Upon arrival, the truck hadn’t even come to a complete stop before Olivia was unbuckling her seat belt and jumping out of the vehicle. She stormed across the compound, splitting the gathering crowd and disappearing inside. Negan didn’t look after her; he carefully removed Lucille from the back seat and rested her on his shoulder. Simon sidled up beside him.

“Looks like the newbie is learning how things work around here,” Negan told him, but every word put a lead weight in the pit of his stomach.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! What did everyone think of this week's episode? Here's the next installment; let me know what you think - it's a doozie.

**Chapter IV**

For the next week, Olivia managed to avoid Negan without incident. It seemed the barbaric leader of the Saviors was keen to keep away from her, about which she wasn’t eager to complain. The only times she saw him were when he did his daily patrols of the compound and when he stopped in to speak with Carson when she was scheduled to work with him. And they avoided one another’s eyes. Carson had shifted his gaze between the two of them, feeling the tension, but he kept his mouth shut. Poor guy probably figured Negan had broken Olivia by now.

And he very nearly had, but that one small piece inside of Olivia refused to fully bend to him. He was vile, vicious, and a downright asshole, and Olivia figured he must have been the bully when he was a child. She knew he was dangerous, knew he could easily dispose of her and no one would lift a finger to help. And she damn well knew that he knew that what she’d seen the week before wasn’t going to be enough to break her, but it haunted her.

Since that day, her nights were restless. She hadn’t been able to close her eyes without seeing that poor man, hearing the sickening crunch of his skull as Negan had beat him to a bloody pulp in front of his people. The sound still resonated in her head, and more than once she’d woken in the middle of the night to empty her stomach into the toilet. But she refused to bend because in her mind that was all Negan was at the end of the day—a bully. So, that’s what she told herself as she went about her day, and it was the reason why she was still able to hold her chin up and keep her shoulders straight. He may have traumatized her, and frightened her, but he wouldn’t control her.

Negan knew it, too. He could see the defiance in her features as she pointedly avoided looking right at him. She’d look up at him, but her eyes would never meet his; they’d focus on something over his shoulder, or on a detail on his jacket. He saw it in the way she clenched her jaw when he was around, the way she stood rigidly, always on the defensive around him. Could he really blame her?

The truth he’d only admitted to himself once, before promptly throwing that shit out the window, was that he was disgusted with himself. He’d told himself over and over and over until he was blue in the face that she’d needed to learn her place, needed to know just who the fuck she was dealing with. And yet she continued to defy him, continued to show resilient resist. When he wasn’t feeling absolutely rip shit over it, he’d found it attractive—fucking hot, more like. He liked women with fight in them. It was no fun to him if he chased and she succumbed too easily. That was why he’d fallen so hard for his wife, Lucille, before she succumbed to the cancer that claimed her. She’d fought like hell before they started dating, and he finally won her over, and when she was diagnosed, she continued to fight, and it only made him love her more. But the stress of her illness had been too much, and he’d broken his vows to her and took another lover. She didn’t hate him when she found out; he wished that she did, wished that she’d told him to stay away from her. It would have hurt less than knowing he’d essentially killed her inside as she battled with her disease. He hated himself for it, and when the end of the world came, the very day that she died, he’d turned into someone else completely. He’d always been an asshole, that much was certain, but the new world caused something to snap inside him, and he’d created a new world order, his world order. He created the Sanctuary, recruited all of his men as he found them, and made a new life in the new world. He’d always thought he’d become this person, but as his reign continued on, he began to wonder if he’d always had that darkness inside him, and the end of the world had just brought it out sooner.

Negan stepped to the window in his bedroom. The sky was grey and cloudy, and rain peppered down, dotting the windows. Puddles had formed, so he assumed the rain had started some time overnight. He’d hoped the rain would bring some coolness to the air to break up some of the humidity, but because this was the south, he couldn’t really see it happening. He threw a black long-sleeved shirt over his naked torso and pulled his leather jacket on. Lucille was resting peacefully beside his bed. Gently he lifted her, ran his fingers along the wood in barbed wire. He hissed as one of the barbs caught on his skin and a small speck of blood appeared. He chuckled darkly. She was a terrible bitch when she didn’t get what she wanted. He laid her tenderly on his shoulder, mindful of her barbs, and left his room.

Simon intercepted him in the stairwell, and Negan demanded a progress report. He noticed Simon’s hesitation and sighed, “What?”

“Mac and the boys didn’t come back with much from Hilltop. We’ll need to make a separate run for supplies, a little further out than we’re used to.” Negan grimaced. “Probably two to three days, four at the most.”

“Fine. I’ll handle it. I’ll take Dwight, Adam, Carlos…and the newbie.” Simon’s furry eyebrows shot up. “Chick needs to grow a backbone. Keep an eye on shit while we’re gone.”

“Yes sir.”

Negan found her with Carson, relearning how to splint a broken bone. One of the young boys had fallen off one of raised construction platforms and snapped his arm. Fortunately, the bone hadn’t erupted from the skin, so it was an easy fix. He sat fairly still, only squirming when Carson performed the initial exam and as he was fastening the splint to his forearm. Once it was set, Carson released him and he hopped off the table and ran from the room. Negan’s tall frame filled the doorway, to the surprise of both Carson and Olivia. Negan and Carson locked eyes, and the former jerked his head as a silent command to leave them. Clearing his throat, Carson congratulated Olivia on a job well done, loud enough for Negan to hear, before leaving them alone.

Olivia turned away from him, feeling suddenly cramped in the small room with him. She began to clean up, returning gauze, tape, and other utensils to their appropriate places.

“Seems like you’re fitting in quite fucking well around here.” She didn’t respond. Negan’s empty fist clenched at his side. “Look at me when I’m fucking speaking to you. It’s not polite.”

Sighing through her nose, Olivia turned but kept her gaze locked on the window over his left shoulder. _Close enough_ , he thought.

“Pack your shit. You and I are going on a little trip.” He watched the momentary fright cross over her and rolled his eyes. “Not that kind of trip. Jesus Christ. We leave in an hour. Meet us out front.” With that, he turned on his heel and exited the room, taking the air from her lungs with him.

A run? With Negan? About a million different scenarios of how this could pan out played in her head like a home movie, and they all featured Negan leaving her for dead in some way or even flat out killing her himself. She knew he was no stranger to killing, as she’d seen already, and so to say she was on edge was the understatement of the fucking year.

But before he came looking for her and all but dragged her out by her hair, she quickly traveled up to her room and threw a clean shirt in a duffle bag, along with a clean pair of undergarments. Negan hadn’t said how long they’d be gone, but it was all she had. She’d have to be sure to trade points for more—if she even came back. Her stomach was a ball of icy knots as she met Negan and his men out front. Dwight was one of the men going with them, and a mild sense of relief flooded her. At least she wasn’t about to be subjected to Negan’s wrath alone. Griffin glanced at her sympathetically.

At least he was looking at her now.

Negan jerked his thumb towards his truck when she turned to look at them. Her stomach dropped, but she obeyed, her boots scuffing the dirt. She hauled herself in, closing the door. She jumped a mile when Negan laid Lucille in her lap, the barbs poking through her jeans.

He stuck a long finger in her face. “I am trusting you not to do anything fucking stupid. Got it?” Obedience compelled her to nod and he seemed nearly satisfied with that answer. He turned the engine over and led the way out of the gate, Dwight and the others following behind.

Olivia kept her hands clasped to her chest, afraid to touch the daunting baseball bat in her lap. She’d now seen the damage it could do, and the longer she stared at it the more nervous she became. She tried to calm her breaths and in doing so, drew a glance from Negan. He smirked wickedly, but his stomach felt heavy again. Heavy with guilt.

“She ain’t gonna bite,” he told her. Olivia glanced at him; he was still watching her, waiting. He jerked his chin in a short nod. “Go on.”

Reluctantly, Olivia lowered her hand to the bat, her fingertips just barely touching the wood. She danced them towards the barrel, towards the barbed wire. Negan was alternating between watching the road and watching her, observing the way she slowly examined his prized possession. He’d done many evil, many sick and twisted things with that bat, and watching her explore it with her delicate hands caused him to pull his lip between his teeth, caused a well-known twitch in his pants.

She grew bolder and held onto the handle, lifting it off her lap. Her eyes traveled up and down the wood, barely making out the _Louisville Slugger_ logo on the barrel, trapped behind the barbed wire. She felt the fear dissipating, but not completely. She still knew what kind of trauma Lucille could cause, had witnessed it, was still haunted by it. A dark thought entered her mind and her gaze slowly slid towards Negan, who met her stare. He quickly took note of how her eyes had darkened, the slight clench of her jaw, and panic shot through him. He disguised it with rage.

“Don’t even fucking think it, bitch. You’ll be dead before you get the first hit.” Olivia knew there was weight to his threat and so she set the bat back down in her lap, agonizingly slowly. She’d find her moment some other time. The ride was tensely silent.

They drove across a county line, but the sign had been so worn that Olivia hadn’t been able to read it. Negan had kept the radio off and his eyes on the road. Since her little moment miles back, he hadn’t spared her a second glance, and he’d taken Lucille back and set her in his lap. She didn’t miss the affectionate little pat he gave her once she was back where she belonged. She sat now with her boots on the dashboard, having relaxed somewhat after Lucille had been taken from her. She watched as the landscape turned from trees to open sky as they approached a small, desolate town.

Negan pulled the truck off to the side just outside the first outcropping of buildings and parked it. The two climbed out of the truck as Negan’s men pulled alongside them.

“You guys know the drill. Spread out, take whatever you find,” he ordered. The men nodded and headed into the town. Negan turned his eyes to her and she internally shrunk under his stare. From the back of his jeans he pulled a handgun, a 9-millimeter it looked like, and he thrust it into her hand. “Do not make me fucking regret that. You’re with me.”

He led the way through the field they’d parked next to. The grass was high, reaching her waist, as they trekked through to the woods laying beyond.

“Why aren’t we exploring the town?” she asked as they finally stepped into the shade of the trees. As he turned cold eyes on her, her blood turned to ice in her veins. It didn’t warm even as Negan grinned.

“Relax, doll. If I was going to kill you, you’d be dead by now.” The grin only served to scare her further. “I noticed a house through the trees. The men can handle the town. Something goes wrong, don’t need all of us getting fucking killed.”

“So you’re just gonna let your men fend for themselves? What if they get overrun?” Her mouth betrayed her again. Negan stopped so suddenly she nearly ran into his back. He rounded on her, having to bend his neck to look her in the eye.

“My men can handle them-fucking-selves. They don’t need me to fucking babysit them. They know their job and they’ll do it well. Now pipe the fuck down.” Olivia snapped her mouth shut and swallowed. “You’ve got a really bad fucking habit of opening your yap at the worst fucking times. We’ll fix that.”

They continued on in silence, Olivia minding her steps as they walked through brush and over roots and fallen trees. The snap of a twig in the distance made them both freeze, and Olivia automatically flipped the safety off on the handgun, keeping it pointed at the ground. They watched and waited. A loan roamer appeared around a massive oak tree, snarling and gargling. Its dead eyes locked in on them and it came alive. It picked up its speed as Negan gripped Lucille and strode forward. With one strong swing, he brought her up, catching the walker in the jaw. It dropped to the ground with a thud and he finished it off with a hard swing to the dome.

He shook the walker brains and blood off Lucille before he gave her a disarming grin and continued on. She kept pace behind him, despite his long legs and his adeptness through the brush. She still kept the gun at the ready, and her dark thought from earlier crept back into her mind. She glanced down at the gun then back up at Negan’s back. It’d be quick, and they’d gone far enough that it would some time for his men to catch up, would give her time to get away. She stopped, and Negan took four steps before he realized she wasn’t still behind him. She raised the gun as he slowly turned, keeping it aimed at his chest. She knew he was livid, could see it in the way his face darkened and he pinned her with a glare that should have put her six feet south. Then he turned to fully face her and held his arms out in a challenge, daring her to do it.

“Go on. Fucking do it. Kill me. Pull the fucking trigger.” His voice was tight with barely-restrained rage. She tightened her grip on the gun and raised it a little higher. Her finger hovered over the trigger and time seemed to still. They stared one another down in the silence of the forest. Not even birds were singing. The only sounds audible were the rustling of the trees as the wind caressed them and Olivia’s breathing. “If you don’t do it, you’re gonna fucking wish that you had.”

She steeled herself, tightened her fingers again. This time, her finger curled around the trigger, and she didn’t miss the way his face seemed to pale, the fear in his eyes. He was afraid, probably for the first time in his life, she figured. Then she hesitated and she was suddenly bumped from behind. She barely had enough time to turn and face the roamer that had run into her. The gun fell from her hands as she threw them up, pressed against the walker’s decayed skin to keep its rotten, infectious mouth away from her throat.

They tumbled to the forest floor, the walker knocking the wind from her as it snarled and rasped, its grimy maw snapping. It reached its arms up, tried to grab onto her but she jostled so it lost its grip. She tilted her head up, saw Negan watching the struggle with an undecipherable look on his face. Lucille was at his side, but he didn’t raise her, didn’t move to help her.

The roamer grew agitated, dropping its dead weight on her and preventing her from escaping. Panic shot through her as she used all of the strength she had to keep the walker’s mouth at bay. Her legs kicked out in an attempt to knock the walker off her, but it wriggled so much she wasn’t able to land a good shot. She tilted her head back again as fear took her over, made tears prick the back of her eyes. Was this how she was meant to die?

“N-Negan!” she cried, letting the fear and panic show in her voice. Still he stood there, watching emotionlessly. His jaw was tight and his eyes were dark. He was going to let her die.

As the realization hit, a surge of strength, powered by anger, found its way to her and she leaned up, pressed her fingers into the walker’s soft eye sockets. Black and green muck poured from its eyes and over her hands as she sat up, forcing the walker away from her. With the strength of Superman, she shoved it away, scrambled to her feet as the walker snarled at her from the ground. Her boot came down on its head with a disgusting squish, once, twice, three times. She slipped on the muck but regained her feet as she made sure the roamer was down for good.

She let out a breathy, triumphant laugh as she bent and rested her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Before she could exhale, a hand clamped around her neck and she was slammed roughly against the bark of a tree. Negan’s face hovered inches from hers, his face red. His fingers tightened around her throat, cutting off her air supply. Their noses were practically touching as he drew closer, the bark of the tree digging into her back.

“The next time you aim a fucking gun at me, I swear it will be your fucking last,” he seethed. His voice was low and laced with promise. She clawed at his hands in desperation, but her eyes bore into his, refusing to back down.

“It would have been a kindness,” she rasped in reply, watching his emotions change from rage to fear and back. She glared at him under her lashes, feeling herself growing light-headed. Suddenly his hand was gone and air rushed back into her lungs as she inhaled loudly. She coughed and rubbed her neck, leaning over with her arm against the tree. Negan had turned his back to her, stormed over to pick up Lucille where he’d gently laid her before charging at Olivia.

“Let’s go.”

With another glare at his back, Olivia stooped to pick up her gun, keeping it down but ready. She knew Negan’s trust in her was quickly waning; that was twice he’d caught her attempting to kill him in the same day.

They continued on in thick, tense silence. Negan had made her walk in front of him to keep a better eye on her and she knew he had Lucille poised at the ready in case she tried anything else. She stepped carefully, avoiding roots that jutted out from beneath the leaves and dirt. The morning’s rain paired with the south’s acrid humidity made for a disgustingly muggy trek through the woods. Her forehead was slick with sweat and her clothes clung uncomfortably to her frame. What she wouldn’t give for a dip in a swimming pool right about now. She pulled her hat off her head and used it to lap up with sweat gathering at the back of her neck then swatted at mosquitos buzzing around her head.

Behind her, Negan watched her arms flail and her hands clap at nearly invisible insects. She looked ridiculous, but his tongue peeked out to lick at his lips as she turned forwards and lifted the hem of her shirt to wipe at more sweat, giving him a great view of the dimples that settled in her lower back. He caught himself just before he tripped over a rather large root. They stopped briefly and Negan shoved his canteen into her stomach. She huffed but unscrewed the cap and took a large swig.

“Save me some, princess,” he grumbled, swiping it back when she held it out and wiggled it. “Y’know,” he took a large swallow, “you’re pretty perky for someone who just tried to kill a man.”

“Don’t forget almost became roamer-chow. I was a little more worried about that, I’m not sorry to say.”

Negan’s eyes darkened and he took a small but menacing step forwards. “Don’t think you’ll get another opportunity.” Olivia’s eyes squinted briefly, carelessly, as she shrugged a shoulder and turned to resume their walk.

Now they walked side by side, still tense, and they kept a few steps away from one another. Olivia was looking at the dirt, watching for roots and logs and rocks while Negan carried on staring ahead into the trees, easily avoiding anything jutting from the ground.

Suddenly a tawny shape came leaping out of the woods in front of them, and both of them hit the dirt, expecting some kind of attack. However, when all that was met was the sound of the faded hoofbeats, Olivia shot to her feet and took off after the deer. Negan scrambled to keep up, feeling slightly winded in his old age.

“What the fuck, Olivia?” he barked, breathless as he pushed his legs to move faster. She was like a goddamn gazelle the way she dodged trees and leapt brush.

“That deer will feed everyone for a week. Did you see the size of it?” Her voice was getting smaller as she pulled ahead.

As Negan clumsily leaped a small fallen birch tree, he all but tripped over his own feet when Olivia came to a skidding halt in front of him and dropped into a crouch. She glared at him and yanked him down by the lapel on his leather jacket to kneel beside her, his jeans in the mud. When he opened his mouth, she hushed him with a finger to her lips and pointed between the branches of the shrub they’d hidden behind. He leaned forward to get a better look and his mouth watered at the sight of the large buck grazing just yards away. His head was over her shoulder, watching intently as the buck’s ears swiveled to and fro, listening for any signs of danger. His breathing was silent but ragged and she could feel the heat from exertion radiating off of him. His front was uncomfortably close to her back and he’d rested a hand on her back to steady himself when she yanked him down. His palm warmed her back. He left it there now and it distracted her as she slowly lifted her handgun. Negan’s eyes flitted to her; she glanced at him and quietly slapped his hand away from her and readjusted her position. He watched her take aim at the buck’s neck, watched her index finger hovering just next to the trigger. She inhaled and curled her finger around the trigger, exhaled.

_Bang._

The forest was suddenly alight with activity as birds took to the sky and a rabbit scurried away some feet away. The buck dropped to the ground, Olivia’s bullet having found home in its neck.

She whooped quietly and jumped out of the bush to examine her kill. Even Negan was smiling as he straightened his tall frame and swaggered out behind her.

“Not bad, doll. Not fucking bad at all.” He looked down at the buck, its black eye staring lifelessly up at the canopy. “Where’d you fuckin’ learn to hunt like that?”

“My father,” she replied with another shrug of her shoulder. “Think this might do it for today?”

Negan barked a laugh. “Sweetheart, I’d say it does a fuck load.” He knelt to scoop the deer up, grunting at its weight, when the silence in the trees was broken by the unmistakable sound of groaning. Dread filled Olivia’s stomach as the grey shapes of roamers appeared between the trees like something straight out of a horror movie.

“Oh no,” she moaned, turning her despondent gaze to Negan and the deer. “They must’ve been drawn by the shot.”

“Fuck,” Negan cursed. The buck was heavy around his shoulders and the roamers were closing in. They met each other’s gaze, already knowing the inevitable.

“We won’t make it if we take it with us,” Olivia said, and Negan pointedly tried to ignore the feeling in his stomach when she said _we_. “We’ll have to leave it.”

Negan gritted his teeth and adjusted the buck. “Like hell. Fucking move it, Olivia. Go!”

And they took off away from the closing roamers. Negan was slower as expected, and Olivia had to slow her own pace to avoid losing him. He ambled over trees and roots and rocks, trying to keep his footing. If he fell, they were both screwed. They watched helplessly as more roamers joined the small herd forming behind them, and Olivia had to stoop and pick up a branch to aim a swing at a roamer that had gotten too close for comfort.

Negan was slowing, winded from the added weight and exertion. He was breathing heavily behind her, his knuckles white. He had his head down and only stopped when Olivia placed her hands on his chest. He looked up into her eyes, felt a pang in his chest when he read the look in them.

“We have to leave it, Negan. If we don’t, we’re both dead.” He hated that she was right, but as he looked around them at the groaning walkers, he felt defeat. With a sudden burst of strength, he yanked the buck over his head and chucked it as hard as he could at the walkers behind them, watching as the closest ones dove onto the fresh meat and tore their rotted hands into the tender belly. Then he turned towards Olivia, grabbed her hand, and the two took off through the trees, leaving the champion buck behind.

A few walkers ignored the buck and continued to chase them as they broke through the trees into the field where Negan had parked the truck. His men were milling by the vehicles, clearly having scavenged anything they could.  Their shouts echoed as they noticed their leader and they took their positions, began picking off roamers as they emerged from the trees. A rain of bullets whizzed by Olivia and Negan as they sprinted, hand-in-hand, across the field. Only when they’d reached the men did they stop to catch their breath, and by then most of the walkers had been disposed of.

They bent at the waist to catch their breath and Olivia glanced curiously down at their linked hands. A lead weight dropped itself in her stomach and she felt herself yank her hand out of Negan’s grip. He looked at her, his hazel eyes turning to melted chocolate in the shade. Sweat beaded his forehead and pasted his hair to his skin. Olivia turned away from him to sweep her hat off her head and wipe at her brow. Dwight appeared before her with a canteen and she gratefully accepted it, nearly downing the entire thing.

“Find anything?” he asked. Olivia turned to look at Negan, an almost fearful look in her eye. Would he tell them?

“Olivia bagged herself a big ass buck but we had to leave the fucker. Gunshot drew a herd of them. Damn fucking shame too.” He straightened as he spoke, his eyes never leaving Olivia’s. There was praise in them, for the deer, but there was also a warning that if she tried that shit again, she’d be sorry. Olivia swallowed and ducked her head.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter V**

After being essentially chased from the area, Negan, Olivia, and the others headed east of the town. Dwight and the others hadn’t picked up much other than a few bottles of ibuprofen, cough medicine, and some gauze wraps, but medical supplies were always a good find. Olivia felt slightly guilty that she and Negan hadn’t come up with anything, having had to sacrifice a decent meal to the damn roamers, but she had a small beacon of hope that they’d be able to find something else just as good. The road took them to another town, but after deciding there were far too many roamers milling about for their liking, they moved on.

The truck was quiet as Negan drove them down an empty two-lane road that must have been some sort of highway. The stereo was playing a soft rock CD at low volume and Negan tapped his fingers to the beat on the steering wheel. He hadn’t said a word to her after he ordered everyone to pack up and move out and it was a surprise to Olivia that it unnerved her. She had her booted foot on the dash and her chin in her hand as she watched the scenery rush by. She’d gotten used to Negan’s penchant for speed and the landscape turned to a blur. Her eyes flicked to the road ahead and she straightened immediately as the sign for a large department store nearby rushed towards them. She cast a hopeful look at Negan; he was looking at her already, clearly thinking the same thing.

He took a right at the intersection that appeared shortly after, another sign for the store with a large arrow leading the way. Soon a large warehouse loomed in the distance and Olivia felt excitement in the pit of her stomach. Maybe they’d luck out after all.

Negan parked the truck in the nearly empty parking lot. Stray abandoned cars littered the pavement and Olivia swallowed as she took note of the bodies strewn all around them. Most of them were walkers, but others looked to have been human when they died. It made her skin crawl as she stood looking over an older woman whose skin was pale rather than grey. A lone bullet hole in her forehead stood out against her porcelain skin.

“These people were human when they died,” Negan said, voicing her own thoughts, and she noticed the nervousness in his tone. She hummed agreement and cast him a wary glance. He glanced at the gun in the waistband of her jeans and she withdrew it, flicking the safety off.

Dwight and the others met up with them and Negan gave them all, gave her a pointed look, a warning to be extra careful in case whoever had killed these people was still hanging around. They entered the darkened store quietly. Nothing immediately jumped out at them and Negan split them off into groups; half would take one side of the store, and the others would take the opposite side. Olivia felt slight relief when she saw Dwight would be with them. She wasn’t sure she’d feel totally safe traveling with just Negan after the forest incident.

They stayed quiet as they slinked around the store, weapons at the ready. The shelves were in disarray and, to their disappointment, nearly empty. But they continued on, starting in the housewares aisle. They bypassed curtains, ironing boards, cups, glasses, and kitchenware, but were sure to grab any knives and towels that might have been left. There wasn’t much. They moved on to hygiene and none of them were shocked to see these shelves barren. Olivia shoved a bottle of mouthwash into her pack, as well as extra toothbrushes and whatever toothpaste remained. She skipped ahead, past the makeup aisle, and all but dove for bottles of shampoo and conditioner, as well as some new hair ties. The humidity was killing her, and her store of ties was running low. For the hell of it she grabbed a new brush. She knew in the back of her mind that most of everything she grabbed would go to the commissary for people to buy with points, and the shampoo she’d grabbed would probably go to Negan’s wives. She pinched her eyebrows together bitterly. She couldn’t understand how a woman could willingly give herself over to Negan, knowing the things he did. Perhaps there was a benefit to such a position, but her stomach soured at the thought of any kind of good coming from sharing a bed with the devil himself.

She looked forlornly at the nail polish, still near perfect, and looked down at her fingernails, which were far from it. She missed manicures and pedicures and girls’ days out, but before she allowed herself to venture down memory lane, she shook herself and moved on. When she reconvened with Negan and Dwight, she showed them her haul, grudgingly. She’d been sure to grab some men’s shampoo that they seemed indifferent towards, so she rolled her eyes and hung her pack off one shoulder.

They passed arts and crafts, the aisles a mess of crayons, paper, and stickers, and came up on the children’s aisle. Little boys’ clothes were falling off the racks, though it had been clear these had been picked over too. She watched Dwight stuff a few into his pack as well as pairs of pants and a couple shoes. Suddenly the little girls’ aisle came upon them and Olivia found herself dazed, staring at a pink Elsa shirt. She felt her mind go off on its own as she stayed frozen in place, felt the unfamiliar prick of tears behind her eyes. Thoughtlessly she reached out and touched the fabric, running her fingers almost lovingly over the material. Her mind was a blur, blocking out any outside noise, memories rushing through her head like a raging river. It was so loud inside her head, thundering like a waterfall.

She started when a hand dropped onto her shoulder, jumping nearly out of her skin. She gasped as her mind returned to the present and she looked up at Negan. His eyebrows were drawn together and in his eyes, she saw something akin to worry. He dropped those eyes to her hands and she was surprised to see her hands clasping the shirt to her chest as if it were some sort of lifeline. Uncoiling her fingers, she let the material flutter to the floor in a pink heap. Negan’s hand was still on her shoulder, warming her body that suddenly seemed chilled.

She swallowed and stepped away from him, moved away from the children’s aisle and started down the medications one instead. She purposefully kept her gaze from straying to Negan, who she knew was watching her as he stood at the head of the aisle. She didn’t need to explain shit to him, she thought angrily as she shoved cough medicine and ibuprofen into her pack. She felt heavy, weighted down, and it wasn’t because of the pack. She’d shut that part of her brain off, built a wall to keep herself sane at the end of the world. Memories, and thoughts of what were, were dangerous, and would get her killed. She’d seen it happen first hand and would sooner shoot herself before she let herself succumb to the hauntings of Before.

The medical aisle picked through, she moved ahead and found herself in the book aisle—the only aisle that looked relatively untouched. She ran her fingers over the covers of the books and picked out quite a few that would definitely weigh down her pack, but would also keep herself occupied in whatever free time she had. She grunted as she lifted her pack onto her shoulder, having stuffed it to the brim with supplies. She met up with Dwight and Negan at the front of the store who both had very full packs on their shoulders. The rest of Negan’s men appeared a few moments later, looking like they hadn’t fared so well in the grocery aisle.

“Everything’s pretty much picked over. All that’s left is moldy bread and rotten fruit,” one of them, she thought his name was Adam, reported. Negan looked less than thrilled but the haul they’d personally found didn’t dampen his mood too much.

They took the packs and loaded them into the vehicles and as they drove away, Olivia cast one more fearful glance at the bodies in the parking lot. Whoever had killed them had done so seemingly without a second thought, as there were women as well as men dead on the pavement. It put an uneasy roll in her stomach.

The CD player was on repeat, on its third loop, as Negan drove them even further. He’d been quiet the entire ride, had barely even spared her a glance, but she knew he was itching to ask about her little episode in the department store. Unfortunately for him, she wouldn’t oblige him even if he _did_ ask. She was already miffed at herself for letting herself go at the sight of a little pink shirt; she didn’t need him laughing in her face or telling her to, once again, “suck it the fuck up”.

The sun was starting to set just as they rolled into another small town. Less than a dozen roamers peppered the street, livening up when they noticed the approaching vehicles. They parked a few yards away and Negan’s men instantly were on them, using their melee weapons to quickly and quietly dispose of them. They turned to their leader, waiting instruction.

“We’ll stay here tonight. Move out in the morning and see what else we can find,” Negan said. The men nodded and began moving their belongings into a building that hadn’t had its windows shot out. Olivia followed them with her pack and took note that they would be bunking in a bar. It reminded her almost of an old western movie, with dust covering the wooden bar, stools, and tables, turning them an ashen grey. Olivia meandered to a booth and dumped her pack onto the seat, dust flying upwards. She waved it away and used an old bar rag to wipe the bench and table down.

Negan’s men took up residence in other booths or on the floor and she felt her stomach drop as she watched Negan strut to her bench and drop his pack on the floor in front of her. She squinted up at him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked coolly, crossing her arms over her chest. Negan grinned, his hazel eyes alight with amusement that he was getting under her skin already.

“Setting up my bunk, if that’s all right with you, princess.” He knelt down to pull a blanket from his pack, and Olivia was momentarily jealous that she hadn’t thought of that.

“You have a whole bar,” she deadpanned. He just looked at her again with that Cheshire grin.

“And I’m choosing right here. So, you can fucking like it and shut up, or not like it, and shut up. Either way it shuts you the fuck up.” Olivia rolled her eyes and turned away from him, which was hard to do in the booth. But Negan was blocking her in and she wasn’t about to climb over him. She saw out of the corner of her eye as he turned to address the man by the door.

“Carlos, you’re on first watch. Wake Dwight in four hours. The rest of you, get some fucking rest. Now, let’s see what we’ve got here.” He sauntered over to the bar and leaned over it, his long legs easily allowing him to see the stores behind the bar. He made a triumphant whoop as he produced not two, but _three_ bottles of whiskey. His men hollered in excitement as he tossed them one to pass around and held the other two by their necks as he walked back over to Olivia’s makeshift bunk.

He set them down heavily on the wood, causing her eyes to snap up to his unpleasantly. She still had her arms crossed over her chest. His eyebrows moved up and down suggestively as he slid a bottle to her.

“Are you sure it’s wise letting your men get wasted?” she said with a sneer. A brief look of realization passed over Negan’s face and inside Olivia did a small victory dance. He turned to address his men.

“Easy on the booze, you fucking morons. Don’t need you assholes getting pissed and passing out on me.”

There was a disappointed murmur of ‘yes sir’ as the men slowed down on the bottle of whiskey. Negan turned back to her and eased his long frame gracefully into the booth across from her. He reached over to unscrew the cap on the bottle and moved it closer to her with a finger.

“You look like you could use it.” His voice was quieter, softer, and the question of what happened lingered on the end of his sentence. Without answering, Olivia reached forward and grabbed the bottle, bringing it to her lips and tossing back a hefty swig. He wasn’t wrong, she admitted, as the liquor burned its way down her throat. She hadn’t had whiskey in a long time, years probably.

She set the bottle back down and shoved it back towards Negan, who gladly mimicked her shot. He grimaced and she almost smiled. Clearly whiskey wasn’t his drink either. He took note of the softening of her face and let one corner of his mouth turn upwards.

“I’ve always been a gin and tonic kind of guy,” he said, filling the silence. “Now let’s make this interesting and play a little game.” Her stomach clenched in hesitation. “Ever played Never Have I Ever?”

Boy, did she, but not since her early college days, when living on her own was more about partying than studying. By junior year she’d changed her tune, but his mention of the game brought back all those memories of her teen years.

“I’m not really in the mood for a game,” she mumbled, looking away at the wall to her left, the painting decorating it peeling in some places. Negan seemed to not take no for an answer because he was offering to start and rattling off the first situation.

“Never have I ever been to prom,” he stated. Olivia’s eyes narrowed, just slightly, in silent confusion. He laughed, a booming noise that made his men glance at them curiously. “Serious as a heart attack, sweetheart.”

She swiped the bottle and took a drink.

“Never have I ever carried a baseball bat around with me,” she fired back. Negan’s face fell slightly and she didn’t miss the small flash of anger. But he just took the bottle back and made sure to take a longer shot to cool his jets.

“Never have I ever been a prissy pre-med student.” She gritted her teeth, regretting this game already, but she drank, if only for the _pre-med student_ comment. She would hardly call herself prissy. The word soured her mood.

“I’m not prissy. Never have I ever killed an innocent man.” It was a low blow to be sure, and the dark look in Negan’s eyes made her back stiffen. However, it wasn’t rage she saw in his eyes; it was something else that she wasn’t able to decipher fully. But he drank, long and slow, letting the liquor burn away the minor guilt he felt in the pit of his stomach.

Before she came along, he was perfectly fine being an asshole and bashing people’s brains in without so much as a second thought, much less guilt. But since she’d shown her pretty head at his gates, his world had been turned on its head to end up in a chaotic mess. The same could be said for his head; he’d felt so many things other than nothingness and apathy since she’d shown up. Now, because of her, he had started to question himself as a leader in this new world. He fucking hated it.

“Never have I ever had a fucking panic attack in the middle of a department store.”

Her stomach turned to ice and her fingers curled into a fist on the table. She clenched her jaw so hard her head hurt, and her palm itched to make its mark on his stupid face. She’d broken noses before, plenty of them, so it’d be easy for her. Getting a shot in would be the tricky part. Negan’s reflexes were lightning fast despite his tall stature, making him all the more dangerous.

“It wasn’t a fucking panic attack. It was—” She stopped herself and shook her head as Negan’s eyebrows shot hopefully up into his hairline. She drank. “Never have I ever had to be cruel to people to exert my dominance.”

She was toeing the line of his patience, but Negan drank anyways, knowing she was right. Their game continued like this for a few more rounds—seeing who could land the lowest blow, take the cheapest shot. So far they were tied, and Olivia hated how the whiskey had loosened her tongue, made her bolder in her accusations.

“Never have I ever tried to kill a man when his back was turned,” Negan growled at her, feeling the effects of the whiskey himself. He could hold his liquor, but at this point in the game he was far less likely to give a shit about what came out of his mouth—not that he’d ever minded, but he avoided being crass and vulgar with women. Now, all bets were off. Olivia glared at him, her eyes pools of copper fire as she tipped the bottle back. It was nearly empty, but the second bottle lay in wait.

Negan leaned his elbows on the table, angled his head closer to her. She was still sitting ramrod-straight against the booth despite the amount of whiskey in her system, and he was itching for her to loosen up just a bit, almost begging for it.

Olivia was running out of insults to throw at him. She’d hit some pretty low places but Negan seemed to bounce back fairly quickly to fire something else at her. She’d flinched at his darker accusations, like the implication that she was heartless, but she’d stomped that one out by accusing the same thing. She chose to drink away her turn and a cruel smile curled Negan’s lips. She paused, waited.

“Never have I ever had kids.” The air left her lungs in a whoosh and the feeling of tears sprang to her eyes again. She knew he was saying it because he was tipsy, hoping that he was saying it because he was tipsy. He’d hadn’t made a cruel remark to her like that when she met him; he’d frightened her, tormented her, but he’d never been outwardly cruel.

She felt her chin tremble and inwardly cursed, reached slowly for the bottle to Negan’s astonishment. About a quarter of the bottle remained and she drained the rest of it in one go, slid the empty glass across the booth, and reached for the second bottle.

She unscrewed the cap and scooted out of the booth as she thickly said, “Game over.”

Negan let her go at first, let her have her space, and then he was kicking himself. He’d obviously opened up and pried at a very exposed nerve and though she’d fought them back, he didn’t miss the shimmer of tears in her eyes. He hated himself. He’d thought it was a good idea at the time, thought it would hit home after her episode in the store. And it did, but he hadn’t braced himself for how she could, or would, react. He hadn’t ever seen her cry except for that day he’d killed the young soldier in front of her to show her who he was. His stomach felt like lead in his body, crushing the rest of his organs as regret swam through his veins. He looked over to where she’d disappeared into the restrooms and slid out of the booth, making his way slowly to the women’s room.

He didn’t open the door right away, the sound of quiet sobbing pausing him with his hand on the knob. The weight grew heavier in his stomach and he frowned, twisted the knob to push open the door. She was sitting on the bathroom counter, the bottle, a quarter of it gone, dangling between her knees. The fingers of her left hand held it loosely while her right hand swiped under her nose. She turned that copper gaze on him and it hardened.

“Come to throw some salt in the wound?” Her voice was thick with emotion, her face red and tear-stained through the buildup of dirt. Negan closed the door quietly behind him and leaned against it, searching his brain for anything he might be able to say to undo what he did.

“I’m sorry,” was all he came up with, but Olivia still froze momentarily, thrown by his admission. He looked down at the dirty tile floor as he stepped closer. His voice was softer, gentler, like a voice he’d use on a child. “That was a low blow, and it was uncalled for.”

She scoffed and looked away from him, tipping the bottle back again. He followed it with his eyes as Olivia swiped at hers. She looked back at him again.

“You’re a cruel man, Negan,” she told him stonily. He dropped his head, almost in shame. He knew he was. “You think you’re at the top of the world, think you’re the top dog and that you can treat people like shit for the fuck of it. You’re King Asshole, and all of your men bow to you so they won’t face the monster you really are.”

Her words were laced with venom and each one stung more than the last. She was shaking her head when he looked at her again.

“Not me. You’re a beast, heartless, cruel, and downright mean. I should have fucking killed you in those woods. I was right; it would have been a fucking kindness.”

“It would have been,” he murmured, causing her to pause again in surprise. He stepped closer to her, ran a hand through his hair. She watching him like a predator watched its prey, and for once, _he_ felt like the prey. Her eyes were accusatory and harsh, closed off to any emotion except the hurt he’d so obviously caused her. “I was…out of line with that remark. I’ve been out of line with a lot of things with you,” she tipped the bottle back again, “and for that, I’m sorry.”

He was drunker than he was letting on; otherwise, he wouldn’t be thinking half of this shit, let alone saying it. But as the whiskey worked through his system, loosened his tongue, he found he couldn’t stop.

“My wife died of cancer, just before the world went to shit,” he muttered, coming to lean his back against the counter she’d perched herself on. Wordlessly, and almost hypnotized, she handed him the bottle. He took a large gulp, letting the liquor fuel his words. “When she was diagnosed, I handled it about as badly as I could have; I started sleeping with someone else. My wife knew about her, but it was only when she was dying that I decided to full devote myself to her again. I broke up with my mistress and spent every day at that hospital holding her hand, praying she’d find a way to fight and defeat the sickness inside her. But she didn’t. She died with my name on her tongue and love in her eyes even though I sure as fuck didn’t deserve it. But that was my Lucille, always looking past the bad in her asshole of a husband.”

He spoke slowly, his words slurring together only slightly, and when he was finished the air hung between them thickly. He took another drink and risked a glance at Olivia. She was staring at him with an unreadable expression, torn between sympathy and wanting to hum the bottle at his head.

She narrowed her eyes and took the bottle back. “Just because you dumped your black heart out doesn’t mean I’m going to do the same. Do us both a favor, Negan, and stay the fuck away from me.” She hopped lithely down off the counter; she’d had way more to drink than he did, but she wasn’t showing it as she left him alone in the bathroom. He turned around to face the mirror, saw the tired and angry eyes staring back at him, full of self-loathing. He was going soft, he knew it, and all because of this one woman. He sighed and splashed cold water on his face, desperate to sober himself up.

When he returned to the main room of the bar, Olivia was curled on her side, scrunched uncomfortably in the booth with her head resting on her pack. Her breathing was even, suggesting she’d fallen asleep fairly quickly, but the skin between her brows was pinched—his fault, he’d wager. He lay down on the cold hardwood floor, using his own pack as a rather uncomfortable pillow. He stared at the ceiling, the only noise in the room coming from his man currently keeping watch by the large front window. The moon had risen, casting the bar in a silver, ethereal glow. He could make out Olivia’s shape perfectly and noted that she hadn’t allowed herself to fully relax. Blowing a sigh through his nose, Negan closed his eyes and did his best to try and get whatever sleep he could find.


	6. Chapter 6

Olivia had slept like shit the night before, having scrunched herself so far into the booth to avoid any accidental and unnecessary contact with Negan as he tossed and turned on the floor in front of the booth. Judging by his grunts and sighs, he didn’t sleep too well either. _Good_. Her neck, shoulders, and back were stiff from the night, and her dreams were haunted by dark auburn hair and blue eyes like hers. But the dimples, the dimples had been his. Her chest tightened as feelings she’d long ago suppressed came roaring back to life. And all because of Negan and his stupid drinking game. If he wanted to hurt her, he’d succeeded and, while she was regretting it now, he knew it. She hated the fact that she’d risen to his bait, allowed him that one look into her life Before. She couldn’t care less if he was sorry—but was he even capable of feeling regret? She’d thought he was, as he kept his eyes downcast as he apologized to her the night before. But perhaps that had been her drunken stupor fooling her. Her head hurt with a minor hangover, a pang in her head and heart as she forlornly thought back to her college days when she’d spend Thursday night drinking with her friends even though she had a mid-term Friday morning.

As she tossed her pack over her shoulder, her head gave a small thud and her eyes squinted against the morning Georgia sun. It couldn’t have been late morning yet, but the air was already sticky with the threat of another hot and humid day. Negan’s men were milling around, a few smoking cigarettes and talking. They glanced at her as she stepped outside, but promptly dropped their gazes as boots crunching on glass behind her made her freeze. Without a glance behind her she side-stepped to let him through the doorway. He breezed by her, his eyes pointed straight ahead.

His shoulders were rigid and straight as he walked, his voice gruff with lack of sleep as he ordered his men to mount the fuck up. He didn’t spare her a glance as he sauntered over to his truck and started the engine, waited for her. She took her sweet time, knowing he was glaring at her even as she stared at the dirt beneath her boots. She felt suffocated in the cab of the truck as she buckled her seatbelt. Negan seemed to be emanating barely-suppressed rage, but he kept his mouth shut as he turned the truck around.

“Trip’s over, dollface,” he said cheerily, but his eyes were cold and angry and his smile was anything but jovial. Olivia swallowed with relief. The faster they got back to the Sanctuary, the faster she could tuck herself away in her room. She sat straight and rigid in the passenger seat as Negan drove them back towards the Sanctuary.

The trip back was even worse than the trip heading out. Negan’s rage had taken over the interior of the truck, and Olivia momentarily allowed herself to wonder what _he_ could possibly be angry at. After all, he was the one who insisted on crossing personal boundaries. Knowing he was angry just served to make _her_ angry, and then the atmosphere in the truck was nearly intolerable. She felt suffocated, like the truck was losing oxygen. Both of them were fuming; Negan burned holes in the road ahead of them while Olivia very nearly seared a hole in the passenger side window.

Feeling lightheaded, she opened the window a crack and leaned closer to the breeze drifting in. She closed her eyes, but the lightheadedness didn’t go away. Her chest tightened and the feeling crept up into her throat and suddenly she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She pressed a hand to her chest and gasped, drawing Negan’s attention to her.

“Stop the truck,” she choked. She surged forward as Negan slammed on the brakes, causing the truck to fishtail on the pavement. The truck behind them had to brake hard and swerve to avoid hitting the back of Negan’s truck. He eased the vehicle off to the side, into the dirt, and Olivia was out of the truck in seconds. She took off into the woods, and Negan climbed out, slamming the door furiously behind him. He held up a hand to Dwight and the others and followed Olivia’s path with his eyes.

She didn’t go far, just far enough into the trees so that she wouldn’t be seen. She propped herself up against a large tree, the bark digging into her hands. She sank to her knees as her mind went completely blank. Her breathing was quick and ragged and her heart raced beneath her ribcage so hard she feared it might burst from her chest. She felt tears at the corners of her eyes, felt the lightheadedness and the suffocation. She pressed her hand to her chest again, ran a hand through her hair, closed her eyes and willed the panic to pass.

Finally, the panic ebbed, and her breathing slowly returned to normal. She swiped under her eyes, trying to clear the tears that escaped against her will. Each time she closed her eyes, blue eyes and dimples smiled back at her. It was hell on her nerves, the memories grating on every nerve ending, sending jolts of pain straight through her heart. _He has no idea what he’s done_. The tears wouldn’t stop coming, so she finally gave up fighting them and let herself cry for a while. Neither Negan nor one of his men came after her, and she was grateful, if only for a second. She sobbed quietly, hunched over to hide her face in case one of them came looking.

They didn’t, so when she felt as if she’d run out of tears, her throat dry and hoarse, she cleaned herself up as best as she could manage and strode meaningfully out of the woods. Negan was leaning against the passenger fender of the truck, his arms crossed over his chest. He didn’t say a word, just looked at her with growing impatience. She stomped by him and jerked open the door; he pushed off the truck and swaggered around to the driver’s side, angling his frame inside.

It was initially quiet in the truck as they resumed the trip back. Negan had relaxed in the driver’s seat, one hand draped over the wheel and the other resting on Lucille as she lay in his lap. He was tapping the foot that wasn’t on the gas and occasionally he cast a curious, but angry, look in her direction. She had closed her eyes against the glass and the sunlight streaming into the truck flickered off the tear tracks on her face. Negan frowned, cleared his throat. Olivia peeked one hazel eye open, looking at him beneath her lashes.

“You gonna fucking tell me what that was about?” he said, as if it were obvious that she owed him an explanation. Olivia ground her teeth and sat upright, her head throbbing from the immense crying session.

“I don’t think you’d even begin to understand.” Her voice was gravelly, her throat sore, and she pointedly kept her eyes trained forward. Negan’s frown deepened.

“Would you believe it if I said I was sorry again?” His voice was quieter, but in the silence of the truck it was like he’d spoken through a megaphone. Olivia turned emotionless eyes on him, her jaw muscles tight. Her palm itched to slap him or slam his arrogant head off the steering wheel.

“Do you even know the meaning of the word?” Negan’s mouth flopped open and then snapped shut and he growled quietly in his throat. “Like I said last night, _Negan_ , do us both a goddamn favor and leave me the fuck alone.”

“Fine. Have it fucking your way, bitch.” And he floored the truck, pushing it to sixty-five.

 

They bunked for the night off the side of the road, choosing to sleep in the vehicles. Negan offered her the spacious backseat and Olivia fought back a scoff. _Because he’s such a fucking gentleman._ But she climbed in back regardless. Negan left one of his men to keep watch in the bed of the other truck while the rest of them could get at least a couple hours of much needed sleep. Negan tipped back his canteen, took a swig, and passed it to Olivia in the backseat, who eyed it the same way she would a rattlesnake. But her throat was parched and felt like sandpaper, so she grabbed it roughly from him and drank almost all of it in one go. She wiped her mouth and shoved it back in his hand, then rolled onto her side with her back to him. She felt the driver’s seat tip back as he stretched his long frame out, a difficult task in the small space of the truck. Despite the rage still circulating in her veins, Olivia was fast asleep almost as soon as she dropped her head onto the seat.

She dreamed that night, the first since the start of the end of the world. It played vividly in her mind, like a movie at the theater, surround sound and everything. Her mind showed her flashes of Before, of a small child with auburn hair and dimples in a pretty blue sundress running in the backyard, a yellow Labrador yipping happily. The child and dog romped and rolled in the grass, and the child ignored the grass stains on the blue fabric from the morning’s lawn mowing. An arm wrapped around her shoulders, tugged her into a broad, button-down clad chest with the sleeves rolled up. A naval tattoo poked out from under the left sleeve and she absentmindedly danced her fingertips across the blue and gold ink. She had a smile on her face as she watched the child straddling the dog like a small pony, laughed when the dog ran out from beneath her, and the child erupted in raucous giggles. With a flash of white a new image was presented to her. Machines, wires, a hospital bed, the child unconscious with tubes and monitors plugged into her tiny body. She had a lilac scarf around her small head, her thin chest rising and falling as she slept. The man in the button-down was beside her, his arm around her shoulders as she stared at the figure on the bed. Another white flash, and she was looking down at herself dressed in black in the front pew. The man with the tattoo sat on the other side of the aisle, and he didn’t look at her once. He stared blankly up at the altar, at the mass of flowers adorning the closed casket. A large picture frame, the little girl’s kindergarten photo, smiled back at them.

A hand landed roughly on her shoulder, jerked her awake. She bolted upright, skimming her head on the ceiling of the cab. She was damp with sweat, her hair sticking to her forehead. She ran her hands over her face as the hand on her shoulder retracted. She turned her eyes to the dark outside; crickets and peepers roared in the night, and Olivia was just able to make out the shape of Negan’s man standing on the bed of the other truck. Then she turned towards the front seat and her wide eyes met Negan’s tired, but alert, ones. His brow was furrowed in worry as he watched her, the front seat reclined over her legs. Instinctively she pulled them towards her, rested her forehead on her knees as she swallowed, tamping down the fear that had surfaced because of her dream.

Negan reached forward again and rested his large, warm hand on her arm in comfort. His thumb worked to lightly rub circles on her skin, and despite herself, she found it oddly comforting. When she regained her breath, she lifted her head to look at him, knowing the questions in his eyes that he’d be too worried to ask out loud. She’d yelled at him to leave her alone, but, at the moment, being alone was the last thing she wanted. Her chest hurt and her head throbbed again and she knew she wouldn’t be going back to sleep any time soon. So with all the grace of a newborn fawn, she crawled into the front seat and plopped into the passenger side. She kept her eyes forward but was aware of Negan watching her, waiting for some kind of explanation. But he spoke first.

“It was what I said, wasn’t it? The other night?” His voice eked guilt and understanding, and it very nearly floored her. She didn’t want to admit it out loud to him, so she nodded. She flickered her gaze to him and watched his face fall, watched him as he battled internally with himself. He met her eyes slowly. “I’m sorry, Olivia.”

She shrugged one shoulder and, to her own surprise, tried to dissuade him from blaming himself. “Everything just…came back at once. Things I tried very hard to forget, things I kept locked away. You couldn’t have known what it would do. Hell, I didn’t even know myself.” She was mumbling, as if she was afraid to voice it out loud. Negan pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and nodded, reached down to jerk the seat upright. He traced his index finger along the steering wheel.

“I’m still a dick, though, for even opening that fucking can of worms.”

Olivia nodded. “You are. And I’m angry that I don’t know what that’s going to do to me now.” Guilt settled on Negan’s face and he sighed, ran a hand through his dark hair. She looked out the window into the dark. “That’s what we do now. We forget Before so that we can survive the After.”

Negan looked at her strangely. “I wouldn’t say I forget. Hell, I named Lucille after my dead wife so that she could be there with me, always. She lives on in that bat. And I’m still fucking here.”

“Because you’re stronger with her,” Olivia murmured. She picked at her jeans. “I’m…not when I remember. My memories make me sad and angry and sad and angry make you stupid. And when you’re stupid now, you make mistakes. Mistakes that could get you or someone else killed.”

Despite herself, Olivia felt almost calm and relieved to be able to talk to Negan this way. It didn’t change the fact that she thought he was lower than the scum of the earth, but having carried all of this weight, keeping it locked away to pile up and weigh her down, it felt almost therapeutic to unload, not all of it, but most of it. Because she pretended to herself that he might actually understand, and, for right now, that was enough for her to overlook the things he’d done.

“Why are you telling me this?” Negan asked, pulling her from her thoughts. “I mean, just today you all but told me to go to hell.”

“I’ve been trying to work that out myself,” she replied honestly, looking out the front windshield.  “But you’ve also seen a lot these past couple of days, where I’m concerned. And a small part of me decided you need some kind of explanation, if only so you understand that I won’t freeze up and get you killed.” There was a hint of a smile in her eyes but her mouth remained in a firm line as she looked at him. He allowed himself to smirk. It fell shortly after.

“I’d deserve it. That part you were right about.” Olivia swallowed, attempted to tamp down the guilt rising in her throat. Negan watched her face and shook his head once. “Don’t say sorry. I know you meant it, and you’re right.”

“That...what I said, it wasn’t right. And being on this scout, with you,” he ignored the out-of-place fluttering in the pit of his stomach, “it…you’re made for this world, Negan. You are. You’re able to take this world for what it is now.”

Negan frowned and sat up, stared right through her. “So are you. A few memories and one panic attack doesn’t make you weak, Olivia. In fact,” his voice dropped to a low mumble, “it makes you even more human.” He’d looked away from her, back to the steering wheel where his finger was still tracing patterns. He felt the self-loathing in his gut; could he even be labeled human anymore? He didn’t think so. He’d seared all of his nerve endings, closed off his mind, just so he wouldn’t have to feel anymore. And he didn’t. Not until now, until the woman sitting beside him appeared and flipped everything he _thought_ he knew. Silently, and to himself, he admitted that he admired her. Today she allowed herself to be human, something he wasn’t sure she was capable of. Up until now she’d kept herself so closed off—aside from the stint in the bar—and for a while he thought she was just like him, devoid of any emotion but the will to survive. How wrong he’d been.

Olivia heard the tone in his voice, the slight hint of envy lacing his words. She turned them over in her mind and realized she’d thought he was heartless—though the jury was still out on that—and that he was incapable of emotion. But now she wasn’t so sure. As she looked at him, she could clearly see the conflict in his eyes, warring with himself. Had she been wrong this whole time?

An uncomfortable silence settled between them, Negan’s admission hanging gloomily over them. He worried his bottom lip between his teeth, an old nervous habit that Lucille would often swat at him for. He could see Olivia watching him with a combination of curiosity and what looked to him like empathy. He hated it, hated that he was suddenly doubting who he was as a survivor.

With a huff, he tilted his seat back again and turned his head towards the driver’s side window, wordlessly implying that the conversation had come to an end. Olivia was still watching him, and after his admission, she felt she was beginning to understand the ruthless leader of the Saviors. Though she knew she’d most likely barely even scratched the surface of who he was, talking to him like this had definitely opened up the door to getting to know him.

She, unfortunately, didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing yet.

She lay awake for a while, remained in the front seat, but she tilted it backwards like Negan did. He fell asleep fairly quickly after their conversation, his head tipped back and his mouth hanging open, occasionally letting out a soft snore. Her mind wouldn’t rest, between her dreams and her heart-to-sort-of-heart with her sleeping comrade. She was a little scared her dreams would disrupt her again, but she also wanted to allow herself to dwell on Negan’s words. He hadn’t asked about her dreams, and for that, she was thankful. But he had easily put two and two together and figured out what had triggered her panic attack that day, as well as the nightmares. It felt better that he didn’t ask outright. It didn’t feel like she was under any obligation to explain herself; then again, she wasn’t sure how she’d even find words to answer any questions he had. She knew he had them, could almost see them, waiting there on the tip of his tongue. But he’d had some integrity, enough to keep his mouth shut for now, at least. He must have thought back to the shit he said, how malicious it had sounded rolling off his tongue at _the_ worst possible time. The fact that he’d been somewhat buzzed only seemed to worsen the situation, but as much as he tried to hide it, Olivia knew he felt shame for what he’d said, and he tried to make it up to her with a peek into how he’d come to be who, what, he was. She didn’t buy it, not completely. She definitely believed that he’d fallen apart when he lost his wife, but one didn’t become as callous and cruel as Negan just from that trauma. She wondered who else had spit in his Cheerios for him to close himself off and exert his dominance through violence and cruelty.

Her mind still raving, Olivia closed her eyes to at least give her body the illusion of sleep and settled further into the seat, tucking her legs beneath her. She turned away from the window, feeling the slight draft through the glass. She willed her brain to keep haunting memories from her, at least for a little while so she could function in the morning.

It did. 

* * *

 

Like the morning before, Olivia woke stiff and cramped, winced when she stretched her legs out and both her hips and knees popped. The driver’s seat was empty but a quick glance in the rearview mirror told her Negan was leaning over the bed of the truck, the tailgate lowered. Carlos, Adam, and Dwight flanked him as they pored over what looked like a map. He had a construction pencil tucked behind his ear, and Olivia pondered momentarily at the illusion of normalcy. He pulled it from his ear and marked a place on the map, probably the places they’d been the past couple of days. His brow was deeply furrowed, either in concentration or in frustration, or perhaps a bit of both. Olivia breathed a sigh through her nose and shoved her feet into her boots, lacing them quickly. The heat of the morning sun hit her like a freight train; it’d been so cool in the truck overnight, and she had welcomed the break in the heat. But the sun was out in full force as she dropped her feet onto the dirt and closed the door. The men’s heads snapped up suddenly, but relaxed and continued their examination of the map. She came to stand beside Dwight and half-expected them to pull the map from her view. But they didn’t; Adam and Carlos ducked their heads in greeting, and Olivia only managed a stiff nod. Her eyes traveled over the map, a giant red X marking the Sanctuary’s location. Four circles were scattered in close proximity to the X, confirming Olivia’s previous thought.

“Looks like there might be a barracks here,” Dwight said, leaning forward to touch his finger to what looked like an empty place on the map to Olivia between a small black X, the location of the small town and the bar they’d bunked in, and the Sanctuary. But the others hummed agreement as they studied the area; cartography had never been her particular forte. “We could take a detour, check it out.”

Olivia gave one quick shake of her head, the movement drawing everyone’s attention. “Army barracks are usually the first places survivors will check. Not to mention, if they found refuge there Before, and shit went south, it’s bound to be overrun.” Again, the men surpassed her expectations; where she’d anticipated them to laugh and brush her off, instead they seemed to mull over her words. As the other three men turned back to the map, Negan eyed her over Adam’s lowered blonde head. Something akin to admiration was reflected in his eyes as he held her gaze. Uncomfortable, she shifted her weight and dropped her eyes back down to the map.

She skimmed the map, cursing that she’d never thought to take a cartography class back in college. But her eyes fell on a cluster of triangles not too far from their current location. She dropped her finger on it and the men all leaned closer.

“What’s this here?” she asked. Dwight squinted.

“Looks like a tourist attraction. Some kind of campground, maybe.”

“Could turn up useful for supplies. Campers go away for the weekend, pack a lot of gear, world goes to shit. Might be worth a shot.” Her eyes had lifted back to Negan, waiting for his ultimate approval. He was studying the map, turning over pros and cons in his mind, but her reasoning seemed to make up his mind and she was surprised to find him nodding.

“Might be she’s right. Hot fucking damn, dollface.” He was grinning now, flashing his straight white teeth as the smile split his face. She felt a small bout of pride well up in her stomach, but she didn’t return his smile. Negan folded up the map and shoved into a pocket inside his leather jacket.

“All right. We do as the lady says,” he boomed over them. With a whirling motion of his finger, the men moved back to their vehicles. Negan stayed back a moment, looking like he wanted to say something. But he couldn’t find the words, so his mouth opened and closed twice.

“Careful, Negan,” Olivia muttered, turning towards the passenger door, “or some flies might get in there.” His booming laughter shook her insides and, with her face turned away, she briefly allowed herself a small grin. It fell, though, as soon as Negan climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Y’know, sweetcheeks, you’re not the fucking hard-ass you make yourself out be,” he said, amused.

“Funny. I could say the same about you.” She turned a pointed look towards him and he smiled again, chuckled lowly.

“Don’t say that too loud. I got a fucking image to maintain, you get me?”

“Aye aye, captain,” came her heavily sarcastic reply. It caused another trumpet of laughter to pull from Negan’s chest. In the back of her mind, where she kept certain things locked away, she thought she didn’t totally mind the sound of his laugh.

And she didn’t totally mind when he cranked up the stereo and sang along, loudly and horrendously off-key, with the Dropkick Murphys.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter VII**

Dwight had been right; the cluster of triangles had indeed been a campground—an extensive one that included a main farmhouse, a barn, and about two-and-a-half acres of cabins. It was nestled in the middle of the woods and almost seemed out of place here. The wooden structures were spaced out to fill the massive area, giving each cabin fifty feet of space on either side. It at one point had definitely been some kind of tourist attraction; cars and terrain vehicles were parked in the gravel driveway, abandoned after things started going south. Some cars even had their doors thrown open, and a sense of dread sank into Olivia's stomach. As the trucks pulled up, she noticed a small group of walkers milling around. The sounds of the engines made them turn and riled them up. Negan stopped the truck immediately, gripping Lucille tight as he exited the vehicle. Olivia followed, drawing her knife. Dwight, Adam, and Carlos convened with them, melee weapons at the ready.

"Let's do this quick, shall we?" Negan ordered rhetorically. With one deft swing of Lucille, the first walker dropped.

Olivia charged at the closest roamer head on, slamming her boot into its gut to send it to the ground. Her knife found home in its soft skull. She yanked it free with a disgusting squish and moved onto the next as it grabbed for her. She spun away, burying the blade in its temple. She kicked it backwards to dislodge her knife. She looked around as the sounds of Negan's men in combat filled the forest. When all of the roamers had been disposed of, she wiped her bloodied knife on her pants, making a mental note to throw them in the wash bin once they got back to the Sanctuary. Negan was shaking Lucille, splattering roamer blood and brain matter onto the leaves that covered the forest floor. He split them off into groups, telling his men to check the closest cabins while he and Olivia would scope out the farmhouse.

It loomed over them, as if taunting them, cast in shadow from the trees. It appeared to be a newly-renovated house, as the stairs still creaked when Olivia and Negan put their weight on them. She had her knife at the ready, her handgun tucked in the waistband of her jeans in case shit went sour. She curled her fingers around the screen door, wincing when it gave an unpleasant squeal on its rusted hinges. She allowed Negan to go first; his instincts were sharper and his reflexes much quicker. But she kept close to his back as he shouldered the front door. It was dark inside; the shining sun barely peeked through the trees, through the windows, and left much of the house in darkness. A hefty layer of dust coated every surface and briefly Olivia felt relieved. Dust meant this house had been relatively untouched for a while. She stopped short as Negan straightened, laying Lucille on his shoulder. She was nearly nose-to-nose with the weapon and saw every bit of blood and brain matter caked to her barbs.

She started when Negan let out a single shrill whistle, and they both waited in tense silence. Negan whistled again, just to be sure, but nothing moved anywhere in the house. As they crept forward into the kitchen, the stench of something foul reached her nose. She'd barely smelled it in the foyer, but the closer they got to the back of the house, where a set of stairs led upwards into the dark, the stronger the smell was. They stopped at the bottom of the stairs and Olivia had to cover her nose, the rancid smell causing her eyes to water. Whatever was causing the smell was coming from upstairs.

She shared a hesitant look with Negan. "Gotta clear the house," he said. "We'll do this slowly and one at a time. Something comes out of those rooms we'll both take a little trip down the stairs." Olivia nodded and allowed a couple feet of space between them. She thanked above that the stairs had been carpeted, muffling the sounds of their boots. She kept her knife and eyes up, her muscles taut and ready, like a lion she watched on some Discovery show. It had crouched silently in the grass, waiting for its moment.

Negan muffled a cough in his elbow as he reached the top of the stairs, the smell nearly bowling them both over. He squeezed his eyes shut against the stinging sensation as the smell assaulted every one of his senses. Olivia's stomach roiled with nausea as she too covered her mouth and nose with her arm. Negan had one hand wrapped tight around Lucille, keeping her high and at the ready. The hallway was nearly pitch black, Olivia noticed as she ascended the last stair. It was still carpeted, and she could just make out the shapes of paintings on the walls. The first door on their left led to a bathroom; the door was open, and Olivia sighed inaudibly when she saw that it was very much empty.

Negan moved ahead of her to the first door on the right, while she took the second on the left. She turned the brass knob and slowly pushed it open, peering inside. But when she saw the lavender walls and the small crib in the corner, she promptly slammed it closed again and pressed her back against it. Negan whirled at the sound of the door, frowning when he took in her eyes squeezed tightly shut. He moved to her in two long strides and rested a hand gently on her shoulder. Her eyes fluttered open.

"Can't do this one." She looked away from him, her voice strangled. She brushed by him, nudging his arm with her shoulder. He watched her back for a second as she lingered in the hallway and then turned the knob on the door she'd slammed shut. His stomach plummeted as he took in the room.

Lavender walls with a medieval scene painted on them surrounded him. A small bookshelf full of children's books sat on the left side of the room, right next to a beautiful oak crib that looked grey from the dust. He swallowed, tightened his grip on Lucille as a comfort, and moved forward into the room. Toys were littered everywhere, the lid of a toy chest propped open. His stomach was in knots as he inched closer to the crib, not sure if he really wanted to look in or not. With a quick exhale, he leaned over and felt the blood leave his face. His throat tightened with unfamiliar emotion and glancing around, he picked up a pale green baby blanket and draped it over the child in the crib, hiding its face from his view. He cleared his throat and slowly moved out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Olivia was waiting patiently, asking him silently with her eyes if there was anything in there. But he couldn't bring himself to answer her, so he shook his head once and strode past her, shoving open the door to the next room. He reared back suddenly, catching Olivia by surprise as the source of the stench was discovered. He hacked into his elbow, bent at the waist to try and get some clean air back into his lungs. Olivia grimaced and pulled her shirt over her nose, but it did little to quell the rancid smell. Curiosity got the better of her as Negan coughed more into his elbow, and she crept forward and poked her head into the doorway. She wished she hadn't.

Blood spatter painted the walls above the bed, two distinct patterns. Streams of the red liquid trailed down the wall to disappear behind the headboard. Olivia followed them with her eyes and gasped aloud at the two figures lying dead above the covers. Negan seemed to regain some of his breath and came up behind her. She felt him freeze as he took in the room and the two dead inhabitants. They had been a young couple, judging by the lack of wrinkles on their hands, which were clasped together between them. They were dressed in their Sunday best, the woman in a beautiful blue sundress and the man in a pair of grey slacks and a hunter green button-down. They were sitting up against the headboard, their heads bent forward, giving Olivia and Negan a bird's eye view of the massive, baseball-sized identical holes in the backs of their heads. Olivia felt herself tremble, emotion rising in her throat. She felt more than saw Negan reach forward for the doorknob and he pulled it closed in front of her. She let out a loud, shaky breath and felt her knees go weak. Negan's hand was on her back this time, attempting to lead her away and back down the stairs. She went first, slowly, waiting for the blood to return to her limbs.

Negan silently decided that this house would not provide any more supplies, and frankly, the way Olivia was acting was making him nervous. He kept his hand on her back as they emerged from the house and she seemed to come to life again, inhaling deeply as the air was purified of the rotten stench of the corpses upstairs. He, too, took a moment to filter his lungs and observed Olivia as she stepped off the porch. She had a faraway look in her eyes as she stared out into the trees, and he wondered if she knew what he'd seen in the nursery.

He watched her throat move as she swallowed and seemed to return from her thoughts. She looked at him quickly and brushed a hand over her hair.

"Sorry," she muttered, "I don't know what that was."

"S'okay," he replied, shrugging one shoulder. "Happens."

"I know, but usually I'm pretty good about…"

"Yeah. I know. Come on, let's see where the others went."

They caught up to the others quickly who also came up empty-handed. Olivia glanced downward, almost shamefully; she'd been the one to suggest the location, expecting to find at least _something_ worth taking. But the men around her didn't pin her with glares or comments of blame, so she relaxed, but only slightly. She allowed her eyes to sweep over the property, and it finally rested on the barn that hadn't been checked.

With purposeful strides, she headed towards it, and Negan had to jog to catch up. He ordered the others to keep looking as they checked out what could be salvaged from the barn. Olivia pulled hard on the barn door, the wheels creaking with rust. She pushed it open as far as she could in hopes that at least some sunlight would light up the inside. Faded sunlight streamed in, and they took in the wide concrete aisle, the stalls on either side. She couldn't stop the small smile as she heard a familiar snort and she moved forward quickly towards the first stall. Negan made a grab for her—the barn hadn't been cleared yet—but he missed, and so he crossed to her in three strides as she pulled open the first stall door. A large black head poked out at her, ears pricked forwards in curiosity. Negan stopped short, kept his distance as Olivia ran her hand over the massive forehead of the horse in front of her. She stroked his ears and ruffled his forelock and the horse threw his head, snorting again. Negan's eyes slowly traveled from the horse to Olivia, and he nearly keeled over at the sight of the smile on her face. He shifted his weight to one foot, watching. A feminine giggled left her lips, flipped his insides, as the horse rubbed his face along her front.

He cleared his throat, smirking when Olivia jumped and her gaze slid to him in embarrassment. She ran a hand through her hair and he didn't miss the blush staining her cheeks.

"I volunteered at a show barn when I was younger. Best job I ever had," she muttered, turning back to the horse. A sudden snarl and the ringing of metal made them spin towards the sound. The horse threw his head unpleasantly, his ears pinning back against his head. Olivia and Negan relaxed, though, when they saw the roamer locked in one of the stalls, the carcass of what looked like a goat bloodied and picked through in the stall shavings behind it. It pressed its ugly face to the bars, snapping its jaws.

Negan quickly disposed of it, jabbing Olivia's blade between the bars into its forehead. He grunted as he pulled the knife free and wiped it on his pants. Olivia had returned to the horse, running her hands across its sleek black coat.

"You know," she started, glancing up at him with raised eyebrows, "taking horses back with us wouldn't be such an awful idea. Cars run out of gas eventually, and gas is hard to come by. Horses aren't."

"But cars are faster if shit goes south," Negan pointed out. He saw her reasoning, but he still hesitated.

"Not if they're low on gas."

"Where the flying fuck are we gonna keep them?" he retorted, glancing at the horse as it took one step outside of the stall.

Olivia shrugged. "I'm sure there's an old building we can convert to a barn or something." He couldn't believe he was actually considering this. The horse took another step forward and he automatically took one step back, a movement that definitely did not go unnoticed by Olivia. Her eyes bounced between Negan and the horse, and small smirk curled her lips.

"You're afraid of him, aren't you?"

Negan spluttered, trying to formulate a defense against her accusation. But the more he tripped over his words, the wider her smirk grew until it was a full-fledged, full-toothed smile that nearly knocked him on his ass.

"You're telling me, the Big Bad Wolf is scared of a horse? One of the dumbest animals on earth? Oh, this is rich." She was nearly laughing now. Negan felt his face blaze with embarrassment but he decided he didn't hate the sound of her laughter. It was definitely a much more pleasant sound than her yelling at him—or crying.

"I thought you liked these big, dumb animals?" he groused, crossing his arms. He reminded her of a toddler.

"Oh, I do. But I know they aren't smart." The laughter left her voice, but the smile stayed in place. She jerked her head in a 'come here' motion. Negan planted his feet, refusing to move. She set her hands on her hips in a typical motherly fashion and wagged her finger at him. Slowly he crept forward, his cheeks still burning. He moved closer to her until the horse's massive head and shoulders were between them.

Wordlessly, Olivia stepped around the horse's head and picked up Negan's large hand. It swallowed hers, but he didn't let himself dwell too much on it as she gently laid his hand against the anima's broad, black neck. It was softer and warmer than he'd always thought and he moved his hand down the soft fur slowly and gently. He felt the horse's muscles twitch as he neared its shoulder, brought his hand back up to where it had started to stroke the same path again. He glanced down at Olivia, who was looking at him with a soft smile on her face, the fingers of her right hand scratching the horse's forehead.

"See, not so bad, right?" she said quietly, her tone dropping low. He swallowed, feeling nervous as he stood beside her, his frame towering over hers. Her eyes were still alight with amusement, locked on his as they stood side by side.

Olivia found herself studying the contours of his face, the stubble growing longer on his chin, the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. He was a good-looking man, one she may have considered dating before the world went to hell. But the world as it was now brought out the worst in people and, unfortunately for her, she had witnessed it first-hand. With this thought in her mind, she cleared her throat and stepped away from him, towards the stall door where the horse's halter was hanging. She looped it over his head and buckled it, taking note of the name engraved on the nameplate.

"Daredevil, huh?" she said, more to the horse than to Negan, who was still standing beside the horse's neck in mild shock. He watched her clip the lead rope to the halter and she shoved the rope in his hands, snapping out of his reverie.

"How the fuck are we gonna transport them?" he said, his voice slightly husky. He watched her studying him, watched the conflicting emotions flitter through her eyes. She may have perfected a poker face, but her eyes screamed volumes and he intended to listen very closely. He saw the attraction in her eyes, saw how it morphed into hesitation, and then to resignation, and then to nothing at all.

She merely pointed to the window of the stall where the roamer had been, and he noticed the obvious shape of a horse trailer parked on the other side of the barn. He grumbled lowly as Olivia moved to the next stall to grab the next horse and the next one and the next one, until she was leading three horses at once out of the barn. Negan watched in growing fascination as she knowingly led them out of the barn and around towards the trailer. With one fleeting look at Daredevil, who was waiting patiently, he gripped the lead rope and started walking, almost yelping in surprise when the horse fell into step beside him.

He heard Olivia cooing to the horses as she led the first into the trailer, the other two milling close by, their lead ropes on the ground. She got the first horse settled and then came back for the others, loading them quickly before rushing back into the barn. She had a saddle in her hands and all but shoved it at Negan, who grunted at its weight. She told him where to put it as she went back in, came out with yet another saddle.

Once the horses—there had been seven in all—saddles, bridles, and other equipment they'd need were loaded, Olivia had Negan back his truck towards the trailer so she could hitch it. It took her less than ten minutes and she had him pull out slowly to make sure the trailer stayed put. With a satisfactory nod, Olivia climbed into the passenger seat, nearly grinning with excitement.

Negan was watching her, one hand on the wheel, the other on Lucille in his lap. "Hope you know they're gonna be your responsibility."

Glee rushed through her. "You got it, boss," she said, giving a mock salute. He snorted, but couldn't deny that the sight of her joy made him…happy. It was unfamiliar, this happy feeling in his stomach, but it was undeniable that this was what he was feeling as he watched her smiling in the passenger seat, glancing every so often in the side mirror at the trailer behind their truck.

* * *

The Sanctuary loomed before them, and Olivia felt mild relief upon entering the gates. The community gathered to see what all the fuss was, and Olivia sighed as she stretched her legs, jumping from the truck. She'd had a burst of newfound energy, a thrill that rushed through her veins as she walked around towards the back of the trailer and lowered the heavy ramp down with ease. Negan met her halfway, Lucille on her perch, and he pointed behind them to an old outpost building, next to the walker yard, with wide double doors leading in.

"That'll have to do for now. It was some kind of meeting hall. Carpet, no furniture. Should be good enough until we can find or build something more suitable," he told her, sans foul language. It took her a few moments to process his words without having to pick out the vulgarity.

She nodded and smiled slightly up at. "I think this'll be good for everyone. Horses are a sign of innocence, and there doesn't seem to be too much left of that here." Her comment made her internally wince and watch Negan's face, waiting for the anger, but it never came. Instead, he pressed his lips together and nodded, patted her shoulder, and turned to watch the show from afar.

As she backed the first horse out of the trailer, the people hovering around gasped with barely-controlled excitement. Olivia couldn't help the smile that curved her mouth as she handed the first lead rope to Dwight and pointed to the outpost building. The small grey horse followed behind languidly, its tail swatting at flies. Adam and Carlos helped with the saddles, carried them to the outpost building and deposited them in the corner to be dealt with later.

She led two horses at a time towards the building, and she felt her eyes travel hesitantly to the stairs where, on her second day here, Negan had nearly choked the life from her. She felt the pressure on her neck again and looked away with a shudder, towards the roamer yard. But she froze, stopping suddenly. The horses she led stopped, too, tossing their heads impatiently. Olivia felt the lead ropes drop from her hands, felt her feet moving her towards the fence that kept the roamers and the survivors separated. She didn't get too close, as one roamer nearly blocked her view. But she side-stepped and peered closer into the yard, and an icy grip took hold of her heart.

She wasn't sure how she'd missed him before, when she and Negan had been out here and he had shown her what happened to people who were no longer of use. Perhaps she'd been too blinded by fear of the man with his hand around her throat to look carefully, but now, in the sunlight, she knew she wasn't dreaming.

With a chain looped around his waist, keeping him from moving too far away from the cement road block, snarling and gurgling with yellowed, unseeing eyes was Matthew. His body had turned grey from decay, making the bullet holes in his torso stand out starkly. The skin around his mouth was peeling as he snapped it open and shut. She slid a cold, irate stare in Negan's direction slowly, menacingly, and met his eyes. He at least had the audacity to look a little bit ashamed of himself. She turned back to the fence, feeling her throat and stomach clench as her eyes stung. The roamer up against the fence followed her every move as she walked the fence, trying to get a clearer view of him. She heard footsteps behind her and whirled to glare angrily in Negan's face.

"Get him out of there!" she all but shrieked, waving an arm in Matthew's direction. "Get him out of there now!"

Negan's jaw tightened and a flip switched. "I give the fucking orders here. Not you."

"Please." Her tone changed in an instant, going from hysterical to heartbroken and Negan shifted uncomfortably when a dry sob tore from her throat. "Please get him out of there. He can't live like that. It isn't right." He looked down at her looking hopelessly across the walker yard. Her eyes shined with unshed tears and he knew she wouldn't let them go in front of him again.

With a snap of his fingers, two men in matching sweat suits moved into the yard carrying dog-catching poles. They dodged the roamers swinging out at them and moved to place a bucket on Matthew's head. He grew agitated as one of the men looped the cord around Matthew's torso and the chain was cut free, dropping to the pavement with a _clink_. The two men led him out of the yard, moving between the swaying sea of roamers, until they were standing before Negan and Olivia. One of the men removed the bucket at Negan's nod and Olivia choked another sob. He stood before her, snarling and reaching out his decayed fingers, unseeing, not knowing who she was other than a source of food. She reached into the waistband of her jeans, extracting her handgun. She flipped the safety off and fired one shot into the middle of Matthew's forehead, putting him down for good. His body crumpled lifelessly to the ground, a pile of grey and dead limbs. Lowering the gun, Olivia stared coldly up at Negan and let the gun fall from her fingers to land in the grass. The horses she'd led over were throwing their heads at the unexpected shot and she calmed them easily with a hand to each of their noses. She picking up their lead ropes and continued on to the outpost building, refusing to look back as Negan stared after her.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter VIII**

Two Weeks Later

Construction had started on the barn the day after the horses had arrived and Olivia was assigned to oversee its development. This kept her busy from the moment the sun started to rise until well after dark, and her long days left her exhausted and aching for a hot shower. She hadn't seen much of Negan since being aside to construction, though she did catch glimpses of him here and there as he checked in on the barn's progress, as well as the other jobs around the Sanctuary. Though she knew he would watch her, he never approached her, and she was internally grateful. She wasn't mad at _Negan_ , per se, because when they had arrived at the Sanctuary she hadn't exactly been forthcoming about who, what, Matthew had been to her. So, while Negan wasn't exactly the root of her anger, it felt easier to have him as a scapegoat. After all, he _had_ thrown Matthew out into his roamer yard.

Three of the seven stalls had been completed in the barn; salvaged wooden beams from an empty construction site served as supports for the swinging stall doors, made from three sheets of plywood recovered from the same site. Olivia had convinced them to return to the barn where they'd found the horses to recover the good hay still in the hayloft to feed the horses until some sort of fodder could be grown at the Sanctuary. She'd had to ask permission from Negan himself, who for a moment seemed hard-pressed to tell her no. But he consented and he ordered six of his strongest men to go with her. The trip overall had been short; in two days, they had filled the trailer to the brim with hay bales and were back in the Sanctuary unloading it all.

That was where Olivia sat now—on a bale leaning up against the massive stack they'd piled against the back wall. She had a bridle in one hand, a rag dabbed in leather cleaner in the other. The state of the tack was disappointing, as expected. Two of the bridles had to be tossed out; the leather was far too dry and cracked to be of any use. That left a total of two available for use, and she made sure they were cleaned and taken care of properly. Her hands deftly pulled the tack apart, until she was left with four pieces of leather and the bit laying at her booted feet. The dirt and dust didn't come off without a fight, but once worked at, the leather underneath shined mahogany, looking brand new. Besides spending time with the horses themselves, Olivia always enjoyed taking care of her tack after a ride or when her regular barn chores were finished. She relished in the suppleness of the leather as she worked the sponge to loosen and wipe away the dirt. It made her bosses happy to see her taking pleasure in such a mundane barn task, something that some of the more overconfident riders looked down on.

The day after the horses arrived, Olivia made it her job to inspect them. Like she'd been expecting, they were skinny. She wouldn't call them completely emaciated, but they could definitely use the extra serving of hay to put on some extra pounds. Their temperaments were docile, leading Olivia to believe that the recreational park they'd taken them from had used them for trail riding. Only Daredevil seemed to be a troublemaker, and she guessed that he might have been a show horse at some point in the past. He looked to be in fairly better overall condition, his black coat shining healthily. As they settled into their new homes, more of their personalities began to show. The pretty bay mare she'd named Starlight was calm and tolerated nearly everything Olivia had done to her when she examined her. She didn't flinch at the sound of a door slamming or someone running up to her. She stood quietly as Olivia picked up her feet and rubbed her all over. Olivia had quickly discovered her secret favorite itching spot, just behind her withers. The mare had stretched her nose in the air and lifted her lip, bobbing her head in obvious enjoyment. It made Olivia laugh and remember just how wonderful the animals were to be around.

Negan had made himself scarce around the barn, but he was the only one. Curious heads poked through the double doors of the outpost since the day the horses arrived, most of them women and children. Once the barn was completed, and four horses were in stalls rather than loose in the aisle, Olivia would introduce them all. She believed it would do the entire community some good to have some innocence in the world. She momentarily thought about teaching lessons to the adults and older children who wanted to learn. As she'd told Negan, horses were quieter than cars and didn't break down or run out of gas—per se.

When the bridle in her hands was finally dirt free, she picked up the bit next and grimaced at the built-up layer of horse saliva, dirt, and who knew what else. She'd need stronger stuff than just water to get it clean. Rising, she set the bit down and left the barn, giving Daredevil a scratch on his nose as she passed.

In the kitchen, heads turned towards her. Suddenly around the Sanctuary she'd become known as "horse girl", bringing her back to her high school days when people found out what she did for work. She brushed off their stares and sidled up to the woman who ran the kitchen. Darcy was a woman of forty-five, divorced, and never had kids. A bout with a painful pair of ovarian cysts had resulted in a hysterectomy, and her husband had been unable to deal with not fathering any children. Olivia liked her well enough, besides the fact that secondhand smoke clung to her like a leech to fresh blood. It took all she had not to gag as she stepped to Darcy's side, looking for vinegar.

Darcy raised a bushy eyebrow at her. "Got some cukes for pickling I don't know about?"

Olivia smiled wryly. "No, ma'am. Just got a piece of equipment that's got some grime caked to it."

Darcy blew out a sigh and rolled her eyes, dropping the mixing bowl in her hands to waddle over to the pantry.

"You bring that back," the older woman warned good-naturedly. "In case we ever _do_ get pickling cucumbers in this place, I'll need that."

Olivia grinned and shook the bottle at her. "I always return what I borrow, don't I? Dock it from my points."

Darcy waved dismissively and went back to her mixing bowl. Olivia swept from the kitchen, surprisingly in a much better mood compared to when she first arrived here. While she still wasn't sure about the leader of the Saviors—he was an enigma she was much happier not unraveling—most of the people inside the Sanctuary were kind and welcoming towards her. They spoke to her, rather than about her, like her first few days here. Since then she made what she hoped she could call friends, often finding herself dining with a group rather than alone. Dwight seemed to like her well enough, and they got to talking about more than just the weather. He revealed the cause of his burns—Negan—and also why he'd received them in the first place—he stole from the Sanctuary and tried to leave. But there had been more to it than that, more than he had been letting on, but she decided it could wait until another time. She knew it pained Dwight more than he showed to talk about, so she let him tell his piece and then moved on to something a little more uplifting.

She hadn't dreamed since that night on the supply run; though her nights were fitful, she never dreamed vividly enough to remember anything. She was grateful for the reprieve; she'd found solace in the barn and in the horses and in the friends she'd made; it seemed to be enough to keep her subconscious at bay at night.

Olivia returned to the barn and jumped at the sight of someone standing in front of Starlight's stall. Olivia had met Sherry briefly some time before. She knew who the other woman was; it had been nearly obvious when Olivia had taken in the sundresses and wedges she wore. Clothes like that didn't exist in the commissary; Negan had hoarded any and all dressier clothes and shoes for his wives. His reasoning was that dresses and wedges weren't practical garb for working, but for women who sat around doing nothing, they were perfect. Olivia saw the logic, but her stomach had soured at the verbiage, quoted verbatim by Simon.

Sherry looked over at the sound of the door, her earrings glinting in the low light. The other woman smiled closed-lipped and stroked Starlight's forehead.

"Hey," Olivia greeted, stepping by her to tend to her tack. "What brings you here?"

"My uncle used to raise cattle," Sherry said, her eyes roaming the unfinished portion of the barn as she walked slowly closer to the stack of hay. "Kept a couple horses around. He taught me how to ride, how to rope, how to brand the new calves. I forgot it all when the world ended."

Olivia didn't mind Sherry; she almost went as far to say they were friends. But Sherry kept herself scarce most of the time. She assumed being one of Negan's wives was tiresome, in more ways than one. Olivia felt herself inwardly cringing at the thought of the physical part of being Negan's wife. In her humble opinion, she'd rather face an army of the dead than become one of Negan's wife. Dwight had talked to her about it, told her that Negan was good to his women, showered them in the new world version of luxury. But parading around in lingerie, doing nothing but taking up space and oxygen didn't appeal to Olivia. Sherry wasn't bad, but she'd heard rumors of Negan's other wives, heard they didn't have the drive Sherry did to be something more than just a pretty decoration.

"Well, it's always easy to learn it again. Puts some literal meaning behind _get back on the horse again_." The girls chuckled together as Olivia prepared a bucket of vinegar diluted with water and dropped the bit in to soak.

"Would you teach me?" Sherry blurted, a small hint of desperation in her eyes. "I'm going crazy in there. I can only listen to so much gossip before I go clinically insane." Olivia empathized; even in the old world, gossip was never one of her strongest skills. She never much enjoyed talking about other people's ordeals behind their backs.

"Of course I will." But she paused, and then she said, "But won't Negan be, I don't know, pissed?"

Sherry waved a dismissive hand, snorting. "I can handle Negan. It may sound bad but I know I can get away with more than the others."

"Benefits of being the first, I imagine," Olivia chuckled. Sherry nodded, and then pinned her with that pleading look.

"You will, truly? I need things to keep my mind off…things. Walking around the Sanctuary poking my nose where it doesn't belong only gets me so far. It'd be good to have something I can put my mind to."

"You know I will. Once we get the barn finished, and some kind of arena set up, I'll start a lesson program—assuming I get permission from Negan." She frowned; that was going to be the hardest part. She knew he would agree, but not before he made her grovel a little bit, beg him for it. It was the type of man he was, and he wouldn't let her off easy just because he knew a little bit about her past and felt bad for her.

"He'll say yes, you know he will," Sherry argued. "He knows horses are more efficient than cars—faster in most cases too. Cars can't cut through the trees."

Olivia sighed and pulled the bit out of the bucket, laying it on her knee to begin scrubbing it with the rag. Like she predicted, the vinegar had eaten through the layers of grime that had congealed on the metal and it gave way to shiny silver.

"I know he'll say yes. That's not the problem. It's the asking that's going to suck. Correction, _begging_." The younger woman opened her mouth to protest but Olivia silenced her with a shake of her head. "You know he will, Sher. That's just who he is. Needs to get his kicks in somewhere." Sherry laid her hand on Olivia's shoulder.

"Let me talk to him. I'll convince him to go easy and just give you an automatic yes."

Olivia blew at the strands of hair that slipped out of her ponytail. "You don't need to do that. Besides, even with your First Lady privileges—" Sherry snorted "—you know I'm right. Negan takes his shots where he wants to. He'll make me beg because he knows it's what I want."

"Then you have to make him see the overall appeal. I mean, I know he gets the whole efficiency thing, but twist the knife a little. Show him the promise of what riding lessons will do for the community. It won't feel like surviving anymore; it'll feel like we're _living_ again. And that's what Negan wants for everyone—he wants to rebuild civilization. Use that against him. Do that, and you'll get your yes without needing to beg."

Olivia smirked and lay the clean bit on the hay beside her. "You know, you're a lot more manipulative than you look."

"Feminine charm and intuition, Liv. You've got it, too, so use it. I'll catch you later." Sherry rose and her wedges thumped softly on the carpet as she left the barn, closing the door behind her. Olivia sat on the hay for a few moments, thinking over Sherry's plan. She had to laugh; she didn't peg Sherry for being a manipulative woman, and her intent wasn't at all malicious. In fact, her plan was downright genius. Olivia just wondered if she'd be able to pull it off as well as Sherry so obviously had. She'd just have to make it work; the worst thing he could do was say no—or laugh at her. That alone would probably wound her pride pretty deeply, but she could take it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter IX**

The hallway outside Negan’s office was empty as Olivia stood before the oak door. She hadn’t been back to this room since her first day at the Sanctuary, when she first met Negan. Her boots contrasted sharply against the grungy beige carpeting and she bounced her knee as she waited. Her arms were crossed over her stomach, hands grasping at opposite elbows. Her stomach was in knots; she hadn’t remembered a time she had been so nervous. She sighed as she raised her hand to knock again, her knuckles rapping against the door louder this time. Still, there was no answer. She blew the loose strands of hair out of her face and began tapping her foot impatiently. Her eyes burned into the wood, imploring Negan to open the damn door.

Her patience worn thin, she slammed her fist into the door twice, as hard as she dared. Still, no answer, but movement down the hall pulled her attention away. Simon was flanked by two of the Saviors. His hands were in the pockets of his jeans and he fixed her with a smirk.

“If you’re looking for Negan, he ain’t in there,” he said to her smoothly. The trio came to a stop in front of her, and she defensively crossed her arms again. She disliked the way he was looking at her, letting his eyes linger in certain areas.

“Where is he?” she spat. His eyes snapped up to hers and another smirk curled his mouth.

“Busy.”

“I need to see him.” She shifted her weight, cocking one hip challengingly. Simon pulled his hands from his pockets and folded them across his chest, mimicking her stance.

“Is that so? Well, that’s just tough shit. The man’s busy with his wives. Make an appointment. Or, uh, I can keep ya occupied until he’s free. But it might be a few hours.” A lewd look entered his eyes. Olivia scoffed and roughly pushed by them.

“I’d rather be roamer bait.” She slammed open the door and stomped down the stairs.

Simon had never been openly welcoming to her, but he’d definitely been a healthy serving of both brutish and lewd. As Negan’s number two, he saw fit to throw his weight around, show off his position more than was necessary. He helped himself to whatever he liked whenever he liked it, and his overconfidence in himself rivaled only Negan. Negan was cocky, but Simon was so damn full of himself he probably didn’t know how to handle it. Olivia fully believed Simon wanted to _be_ Negan, but since the big man himself wasn’t planning on stepping down any time soon, Simon had to settle for lingering in his shadow.

Olivia meandered towards the munitions yard, where Griffin was teaching a new recruit the basics of firearms. She stood back and watched as the young man, who couldn’t have been older than twenty, picked up a Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter and slowly disassembled it. With Griffin’s guidance, he cleaned it and reassembled it faster than she had on her first day in the yard. Griffin looked up and grinned; his attitude towards had since gone back to normal, once he learned that she would no longer be pointing weapons at their leader.

“Hey Griff,” she greeted, stepping up to the table. The young man glanced up at her and gave her a small, nervous smile. “Hi, I’m Olivia.”

“David.” He shook her outstretched hand, shook it before promptly dropping it. He dropped his eyes back to the table and picked up a revolver.

“Heard your stable’s coming along pretty nicely,” Griffin said to her in between guiding David. Olivia touched one of the empty magazines absently, feeling a small swell of pride in her chest.

“It is. Couple more weeks and those last stalls will be finished. Then everyone can go in when they want.”

“Heard you also wanna give people lessons to go out on runs.” Griff raised a dark bushy eyebrow at her in amusement.

She nodded. “I do. I think it’ll be a good thing for people to know how to ride. At least they should be able to stay in the saddle in case the horse ever bolts.”

“You think they will?”

She shrugged and smiled as David unloaded, cleaned, and reloaded the revolver, setting it back on the table proudly. Griffin smiled fatherly and allowed him to move on to something else, leaving the older man and Olivia alone in the yard.

“He’s coming along,” Griff said after David left. “Just got here a couple days ago. Dunno how he lasted so long out there by himself.”

“He was _alone_?” Griff nodded sagely and Olivia huffed out air. “Sheesh. Kid looks at nervous as a doe. I wonder how he survived.”

He nodded in agreement, but then he said, “It’s amazing what people do when their lives are at stake. No telling who they might become then.”

It was true enough. Olivia had hardly recognized the person she’d become since the start of the end of the world. She’d done things to survive that she’d never imagined she’d ever need to do. In a different way, she’d become stronger, hardened against the realities this new world constantly presented to her. She learned quickly that the end of the world brought out the worst in humanity, and in turn she had risen to meet it, adapted like Darwin’s theory of evolution.

“Guess you’re right. You gonna learn to ride, old man?” she asked with a smirk, nudging him with her shoulder. A boom of laughter ripped from his chest. “Oh come on, it’ll be fun.”

“Not with these knees. If I get up in that saddle, you can bet your pretty face I won’t get back down.” They laughed together before Griffin picked up an assault rifle and pushed it into her hands. “You’ve been out of practice with those damn animals. Show me what you got.”

Olivia grinned at his challenge and rapidly took apart the weapon, laying the pieces proudly on the table for Griffin’s inspection.

 

The afternoon was spent in similar fashion. Olivia ate lunch in the cafeteria, choosing to sit with the new kid David, who was a bundle of nerves as he bent over his tray of food. She frowned when he shoveled a slice of bread into his mouth, and it didn’t take much for her to assume he hadn’t had a full belly in quite a while. She felt a tug at her heartstrings; someone so young shouldn’t have to endure so much.

“Slow down,” she said softly to him as he moved to shove vegetables into his mouth while it was still full. He froze and lowered his fork, a blush tinging his cheeks as he chewed and swallowed. “You’ll make yourself sick if you eat too quickly. Your body needs to adjust to taking in so much nutrition.”

He looked down at his lap and mumbled, “Sorry.”

She smiled sadly. “I know you’re nervous. This is a big adjustment. How long were you on the road for?”

David shrugged one skinny shoulder. “Lost track, I guess. Somewhere around two months. Had a camp not too far from here. Got overrun one night after a party. Guess they were drawn to the music. I was the only one who made it out.”

“I’m sorry. I, uh, had a group too. We were attacked, and I and one other were the only survivors. The man I escaped with, he, uh, didn’t make it…” Olivia glanced away, fighting the tightness of her throat. David surprised her by laying his lanky hand over hers in an expression of comfort and he offered her a small, less nervous smile this time.

“So, uh, you’re the woman with the horses huh?” he asked her as he resumed eating at a much less barbaric pace.

“I am. Hoping to start up lessons once the barn’s finished, if I can ever get in with Negan.” She grumbled the last part, sending a glare into her peaches. David visibly swallowed, returning to his nervous state.

“He scares me. Negan. He’s so…”

“Brutish? Arrogant? A total asshole? Yeah, he is. But he does what he can for his people, just not without something in return for him. We have a good thing here, so long as everyone contributes.”

“I want to like it here,” David admitted, now opting to push his food around with his fork. “But something just feels off about that man…”

Flashes of the image of a young man’s head being splintered by a baseball bat invaded her mind, making her fumble in lifting a peach slice to her mouth. The sounds of skull cracking, of blood spattering, of her own upchuck reflex resounded in her ears. She set her fork down and dug her heels into her eyes, forcing the images and the sounds away. When she lowered her hands, David was watching her fearfully.

“Sorry,” she muttered, wiping her hands on her pants beneath the table. “Negan’s, uh, one of a kind. That’s for sure.” She didn’t feel like terrorizing the kid on what she’d witnessed with her own eyes, what Negan had done to a man who probably hadn’t deserved the death he was given. Her eyes drifted above the heads in the cafeteria, landing on a head of stringy blonde hair. She offered David the rest of her peaches and excused herself, making a beeline for Dwight at the other end of the room.

If Simon wouldn’t get her in to see Negan, Dwight surely would.

The man in question looked up at her as she approached. He was seated with another man who ignored the two of them. She sat down next to him, straddling the bench so she could face him. She was faced with the scarred side of his face as he shoved a sandwich into his mouth.

“I need you to get me in to see Negan. Preferably today,” she told him directly. He paused, and Olivia pretended not to notice the second man lifting his head in interest. Dwight took his time chewing and swallowing his food before turning towards her.

“Negan’s unavailable today,” he told her easily, using the same excuse Simon had that morning. Olivia rolled her eyes.

“With his wives, I know. But it’s kind of urgent. Can you get me in?” she asked more firmly. Dwight downed half of his juice, set the glass down and twirled it once before he sighed.

“I can try. But I’m not responsible for what might happen. Negan doesn’t take kindly to being interrupted. I’ll come find you in fifteen minutes.”

“Appreciate it,” Olivia chirped with a triumphant grin before hopping up from the bench. Internally, though, her guts were twisting themselves with nerves. Dwight’s warning resonated in her head; Negan was going to be pissed, that was for sure. But he wouldn’t _hurt_ her as punishment, would he? She’d always taken note of the fact that Negan avoided anything to do with hurting women. His wives, he said, were there because they wanted to be, not because he forced them. So she shouldn’t have anything to worry about then.

After he’d finished his lunch, he met Olivia outside Carson’s exam room. She was leaning against the same wall she had been her first day on the job, when she’d lost one of Negan’s men to bleeding out. He nodded as he approached and Olivia fell into step beside him. They ascended the stairs in single file, and Dwight held the door open to the topmost floor for her. Olivia faltered when Dwight continued past Negan’s office without a hitch, and she rushed to catch up. He rounded the corner and stopped at the first door on the left. Olivia glanced out the windows to her right, out over the Sanctuary and the land beyond. She turned back to Dwight as he walked into the room and inside was a flurry of activity.

Olivia took in the sight of four women in the small parlor room, all dressed in similar black dresses and high heels. They had been talking and drinking from crystal wine glasses. Their skin was clean and the sweet fragrance of perfume hung in the air. The wives—because who else could they be?—watched in fascination as Dwight led her across the room to the closed door on the other side. Olivia kept her eyes forward, feeling awkward under their critical stares. She could practically hear the thoughts in their heads. _Is she a new wife?_

She nearly scoffed aloud at the thought, but thought better of it. Dwight stopped in front of the closed door just as a rather loud moan resounded from inside the room. Olivia felt heat creeping up the back of her neck and began to wonder if she’d made a mistake. Negan’s deep laughter followed, and that was when Dwight raised his fist to knock. She heard fumbling on the other side as their activities were interrupted. Soft footsteps moved towards the door and it opened slowly.

Sherry stared out at them, her eyes lingering on Dwight, an unreadable expression in them, and then they slid slowly to Olivia. She wore nothing but a sheet, her short brown hair mussed from her activities with Negan.

“Who is it?” asked Negan from further inside the room. Thinking it was another wife looking to join in, he came to the door in nothing but his underwear, towering over Sherry as he stood behind her. When his eyes took in just who was at his door, his jaw clenched and his dark eyes flashed menacingly.

“Go back to bed,” he growled at Sherry, his voice thick with unreleased lust. Olivia shrunk slightly, the sight of him shirtless unnerving her. Sherry glanced at both of them once more before maneuvering around him to obey. Negan stepped forward suddenly, sending both Dwight and Olivia back two steps. He closed the door behind him and stood in front of it, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

Then he smirked devilishly, pinning Olivia with a smoldering look that she assumed was supposed to seduce her. “Come to join in, dollface?” he asked her, his voice low. Olivia fought the urge to gag, though her stomach was doing somersaults inside her.

“Actually, I’ve got something important I’d like to talk to you about,” she replied coolly. She refused to let him think he had the upper hand. She forced herself to play nonchalant as she cocked one hip and rested a hand on it.

“I told her you were busy, boss,” Dwight said. Olivia shot him an incredulous look. “Tried to stop her.” Negan silenced him by raising a hand.

“Now, who am I to deny a lady anything?” Desire laced his tone, and that look was back in his eyes as he looked down at her. He took a miniscule step forward, and Olivia forced herself not gulp as she lifted her chin to keep her eyes level with his. She could feel the heat radiating off his bare skin, his scent assaulting her senses. He smelled like leather, bourbon, and dirt. Olivia exhaled slowly as he bent his head down until their noses were nearly touching.

“You looking for a private meeting, darlin’? I’m sure I can…kick Sherry out for a while,” he nearly whispered huskily. Olivia took a small step backwards and scoffed. While she in no way wanted to be alone with a shirtless Negan, she didn’t come all the way up here just to blow smoke up his ass.

“Make it quick. I’ll be in your office,” she told him curtly before turning and striding for the door. Negan chuckled after her and faced Dwight. He slapped him on the shoulder, but it was anything but friendly.

“The next time you interrupt me, I’ll take the iron to the other side of your ugly mug.”

He was smiling as he said it. Dwight nodded obediently before taking his leave as well, casting one last longing glance at the open bedroom door, where Sherry no doubt awaited Negan’s return. Negan caught his stare and started laughing at his back. He made a beeline down the hall and down the stairs. He needed a smoke, badly.

 

Instead of sitting, Olivia chose to walk the bookcase, scanning the titles. Many of them were classics. _Wuthering Heights, Treasure Island, A Clockwork Orange_. The third title didn’t surprise her at all, but _Jane Eyre_ did. It was uncharacteristically out of place, and Olivia briefly wondered if Negan had even chosen any of the books in this room. She pulled it off the shelf, dusted off the cover with her sleeve, and opened it. Her fingers brushed over the pages. She hadn’t picked up a book in so very long that her fingers now itched to hold onto it.

“Didn’t peg ya for a classics fan.”

She cursed aloud as she jumped. Negan leaned against the door, thankfully now wearing a shirt and a pair of flannel pajama pants. Another sight that was completely out-of-place. She snapped the cover shut and moved to put it back on the shelf.

“You can keep it. I don’t touch any of these,” he admitted. All of the seductive confidence she’d witnessed earlier was gone, and she wasn’t sure which Negan made her more uncomfortable. She eyed him as he pushed off the door, his hands in his pockets. She spotted a few tattoos adorning his arms but turned her gaze to the book in her hands so he wouldn’t catch her staring. Her earlier confidence suddenly seeped out of her as it set in that she and Negan were truly alone in the small room.

He sidled over to his desk and eased himself into the chair, resting an ankle on his knee. Olivia internally chastised herself, reminded herself why she was here, and forced herself to level his stare. A patient, amused smirk played on his lips as he waited.

Olivia dove straight to the point. “I want to teach people how to ride, once the stable is finished.” She watched his face, trying to decipher the change in emotions. But there was none. His expression remained stoic as he held her gaze. He was waiting for her to beg. Her gut twisted painfully.

She took a tentative step forward, trying to remember Sherry’s advice from the other day. _Feminine charm, I can do that._

“I just feel that it would boost morale around here,” she began slowly, letting her fingers dance across the surface of the desk. “Of course, people will know it was your idea, and I just know they’ll be thanking you for it.” As she spoke she moved slowly around the desk, attempting, and hopefully succeeding, in appealing to his more animalistic nature. He continued to watch her, his hazel eyes sparkling with mischief. He straightened and licked his bottom lip, letting his eyes travel downward.

“And what makes you think I give a shit about what they think?” he asked, his voice dropping an octave. In spite of the heat in the room, goosebumps rose on her skin, and immediately she scolded herself.

“Why wouldn’t you?” she countered, coming to stand before him. His fingers itched to reach for her, but she kept her distance, peering down at him through half-lidded eyes. She’d never been good at this, even with her ex-husband, but it seemed to be working now. Slowly, Negan rose out of the chair and lessened the distance between them. She felt uncomfortable now, having him in her personal space, but she kept up her façade. She turned her eyes upwards to meet his, widening them innocently. She could do this. “You lead them, and they follow, but they don’t like you. You’re in this for you, and who can blame you? People serve you, provide for you, and you protect them. But from what, and for how long? These horses are your way into your people’s hearts. You’ve seen the way they marvel at them.”

Her stomach coiled as she reached a hand up to let her fingers dance across his chest, and his eyes darkened as they bore into hers. She felt small and suffocated in front of him, but still, she continued:

“Give them this, and they’ll love you. They’ll never question you again,” she murmured, leaning closer to him. Their breaths mingled as she held his gaze, despite her instincts telling her to run as far away as she could. She let her eyes glance down at his lips, watching as they lifted in his signature grin, and then they flitted back up to his eyes. She nearly backed away when Negan leaned even closer to her, their mouths millimeters apart.

“They don’t question me, sweetheart,” he told her before turning away from her. The air around her was cold suddenly and she nearly burst into tears at the thought of having failed. But then another idea sparked into her head and she composed herself.

“That’s what you’d like to think.” Her voice stopped him on his way to the door. He didn’t turn, but he was listening. “You don’t hear what I hear. People talk. Even the men you believe are completely loyal to you. They talk, and you wouldn’t like what they have to say. Their loyalty is wavering, Negan, and who can blame them? You rule over them like a king does his subjects. They kneel to you, sure, but they don’t respect you. They _fear_ you, and fear breeds rebellion. But,” she reverted back to her _feminine charm_ and sauntered over to him, letting her hands rest on his lower back, “give them what I’ve asked, show them that you _do_ care about them, and that fear will turn into respect. A leader does more than rule, Negan.”

Without her realizing it, her fingers had kneaded into the muscles of his lower back, relieving the tension they felt there. She felt him relax against her palms as they continued their assault of his tense muscles. He was damn tired, and he hated to admit that she had a point. At the moment, though, all he could focus on was the feel of her hands on his body, and it sent another wave of desire through him. She was annoying and stubborn, and under normal circumstances he wouldn’t fuck with her at all, but as her deft fingers dug into a particularly sore muscle, he didn’t really give a damn _what_ he would do under normal circumstances, and he groaned low in his throat.

He wasn’t stupid; he knew what she was playing at, but he secretly relished in letting her think she had the upper hand. And the sight of her moving so slowly and tentatively towards him had done something to his insides that not even his wives could do. The way her hazel eyes had widened, had appeared flecked with gold in the glow of the small office lamp, it made his stomach do somersaults. Even now, his palms itched to press her into the door. He very nearly made good on that promise as he suddenly spun around towards her. Surprise overtook her features as she snapped her hands back and she stood staring up at him with those wide doe eyes of hers.

His voice was deep and husky with barely-restrained desire as he said, “I’ll think on it.” With that, he backed away from her and turned back towards the door, leaving her alone in the room.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So I realize I suck for not updating this for a full month. December was a busy month and I never really found the time or the muse to add to it. So to make up for the fact that I suck, here's an extra long chapter with a bit of fluffy Negan thrown in.

Olivia stood beneath the spray of the shower, her arm propped up against the tile with her head leaning against it. Her stomach was still rolling with nerves; they had fueled her feet to all but sprint down the hallway after she stepped out of Negan’s office. Her skin was on fire, her hands tingled where she had pressed her palms and fingers into his strong back. _That_ had not been part of her original plan—neither had her reaction, as a matter of fact—but when she felt him relax beneath her hands she went with it. If it would get her want she wanted, she’d do what she needed to. She’d hoped it would only take one more interaction like that for him to say yes. She’d just have to sow more seeds in his head, whisper more words of possible rebellion. It was a dangerous game, she knew. She knew that Negan was next to nothing without his kingdom, knew he kept his men in line with just a look. Most of their loyalties couldn’t be bought—like that weasel Simon—but others she wasn’t so sure.

Dwight, for example, obeyed Negan, but Olivia also had the feeling Dwight’s loyalty to his leader, to the Saviors, was wavering. It hadn’t taken a genius to see the connection when Sherry had opened the bedroom door, the way she’d looked right past Olivia and zeroed in on the man behind her, the emotions swimming in her eyes despite her best efforts to hide them. Dwight and Sherry were involved, though how deeply Olivia couldn’t say for sure. More of Dwight’s story started to make sense after she’d put two and two together.

Hot water trickled into her eyes, and she let them drift closed. She suddenly felt lightheaded and exhausted, her muscles sore from her work in the barn and from her meeting with Negan. She needed a nap and a stiff drink, not necessarily in that order. Determining she’d used enough hot water, she turned the knob and sighed as the water cut off. She stepped out to towel herself off, pulling on a clean set of clothes before her skin even dried. They clung to her as she ran the towel over her hair to sap any extra moisture before throwing it in a pile atop her head. She shoved her feet into her boots and left her room, but not before tucking her knife into its holster and strapping it to her belt. She’d found it in the commissary, just lying there, and she’d racked up enough points from her three jobs to buy it and the holster it came in.

She jogged down the steps, praying that someone somewhere had scavenged a bottle of alcohol she could hog by herself. The hall was nearly empty, save for a few Saviors who were poking through boxes. They glanced up as they noticed her and gave her cordial nods.

It felt odd to be so civil with these men, knowing what they’ve done to survive and thrive, but Olivia had chalked everything up to that alone—it was what they did to live. She didn’t agree with their methods—particularly Negan’s fondness for bashing in skulls—but she understood the need to survive, and had she been out there any longer, she couldn’t deny that she may have devolved into something similar, something who knew it was kill or be killed.

She began to pick through the boxes, her fingers aching for the feel of glass. It was as she came to the last box that she coughed back a yelp of triumph and pulled the bottle of Canadian Club whiskey out of the box. The stuff was terrible, but she wasn’t about to complain. It cost her three hundred points, another hundred for a set of tumblers, but again, she kept her mouth shut and held the bottle close to her chest and made for the exit.

Sherry appeared in the doorway, and an amused smirk settled on her pretty features as she took in the sight of Olivia cradling the bottle like it was a newborn.

“Gonna drink that all by yourself?” she asked with a quirked eyebrow. Olivia glanced down at the bottle and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth.

“I guess I can share. Girls night?”

Sherry groaned. “God I haven’t had a girls’ night in _ages_. I’ll meet you in your room at seven. I’ve got…things to see to.” With that, she scampered off and Olivia found herself smiling. Girls’ night had always been one of her favorite things when she was younger. Sleepovers in high school with her friends, doing their nails and talking about the boys on the football team. And then they only got more fun when she’d hit the legal drinking age, still bitching about college boys over glasses of wine until they fell asleep on the couch.

She took the bottle and tumblers up to her room, and she let out an inhuman shriek when the door in the stairwell banged open and Negan’s frame took up the doorway. He looked at her in amusement, his eyes dark, and she had the nerve to blush. Then his eyes dipped to the bottle in her arms and his smirk widened.

“Not drinking that whole thing by yourself, are you?” he asked her, letting his voice drop an octave, his invitation not missed. She scuffed the toe of her boot on the cement floor, ignoring the goosebumps rising on her arms.

“Um, no actually. I’m having a friend over.” She didn’t miss the way his face seemed to change, and all light left his eyes. The muscles in his jaw and temple bounced. She found herself backtracking. “Sherry wants a girls’ night.” He seemed to relax, but only slightly, and he now looked at the bottle in suspicion.

“Very well. Don’t make it a late night,” he told her before brushing past her, Lucille on his shoulder. He got halfway down the stairs and then turned back to her, a wicked grin on his face. “Let me know if you two need any company.”

Olivia stayed quiet and fought back the indignant snort she would’ve otherwise responded with. She nodded meekly and spun on her heel, desperate to be away from the wolfish look he was giving her. She scurried to her room and slammed the door, resting her back against it and banging her head against the wood twice.

“Get a fucking grip, girl,” she scolded herself. The whole time he was standing there, all she could think about was the feeling of her hands on his body, the warmth spreading from him to her as she kneaded the muscles in his back. Even now she felt heat creep up her neck at the thought, before she shook her head and once again banged it against the door. She chalked it up to her body being deprived of basic human need, the need for contact with another person, and that was all. But the sounds he’d made in his throat as she touched him…

“For God’s sake, cut the shit,” she said aloud to herself as she stepped away from the door. She set the bottle and the tumblers on the table next to the bookshelf and stared at them, deciding. “Screw it.”

She cracked the top on the whiskey and poured herself a hefty shot in one of the tumblers and threw it back with an expert flick of her wrist. She winced as it burned its way down her throat and warmed her belly. Momentarily she felt sick—after all, how long had it been since she had a good stiff drink? Her stomach calmed itself and she threw back a second shot and capped the bottle again. Girls’ night would be no fun if she was already hammered by the time Sherry arrived.

To pass the time, Olivia brought a book into bed, kicking off her boots and settling in amongst the covers with her back against the pillows. The whiskey was settling in the way it should, warming her and forcing her to relax. She had the book open on her lap, but her eyes weren’t focusing on the words. Instead, her mind was focusing on the source of her frustration.

She knew who Negan was, saw firsthand what he did to people who crossed him—Dwight, that poor young man at the other community. The logical side of her was telling her to steer clear, but the more basic, primal part of her was telling her to overlook his transgressions. But who could ever overlook something like that? That man hadn’t needed to die that day, and yet Negan saw to it that he did. He was a force to be reckoned with, and Olivia had a hard time putting her finger on figuring him out. Their scouting trip had only further confused her as she replayed the shock of discovering how gentle Negan _could_ be, but never was.

Subconsciously her hand reached up to rub her neck, where Negan had wrapped his hand around her throat and painted her skin purple with bruises. It had felt like so long ago, and though the bruises had faded, she still felt them, and it was a stark reminder of why she couldn’t get involved with him. He’d hurt her, and she had no doubt that he would continue to hurt her until she was forced to bend to him, until he’d fully broken her.

At precisely seven Sherry knocked loudly on her door and Olivia all but rushed to let her in. She needed advice and another drink.

“Someone’s happy to see me,” Sherry quipped as she entered the room, taking in Olivia’s frustrated appearance.

“I need advice.” Sherry’s eyebrows rose. “But first, a drink.”

Olivia poured them both a glass and they settled on the chairs in the room. She pulled her legs up underneath her and twirled the glass in her hands, attempting to find a way to start.

“Okay, Liv, you’re about to burn a hole in the carpet. What’s up? Talk to me.”

“I think I might be attracted to Negan.” No sense in sugar-coating it. Sherry’s eyebrows were in her hairline. “Not…emotionally, just physically. I think I just need to get laid.” And then she dove in to what had occurred in Negan’s office earlier that day.

“Well, he _is_ an attractive man. That jawline, that physique…” Olivia pinned her with an unamused stare, and Sherry cleared her throat. “Sorry. But your attraction isn’t misplaced. He’s a good-looking man.”

“He beat someone’s skull in,” Olivia countered, voicing her inner turmoil. “On the run weeks ago. He beat some poor boy’s skull in right in front of me.”

“And you’re battling with yourself because he’s supposed to be ugly and brutal and instead he’s gorgeous and brutal?”

Olivia snapped her fingers. “Exactly. I’ve had nightmares about that day since it happened. I don’t ever think I’ll get that sound out of my head. Bone and brain and blood. And the smile on his face… I mean, who the hell does that and _smiles_?”

“Negan can be a bit…deranged.” Olivia snorted derisively. “But, if it helps, he’s good to the women.”

“He wasn’t to me. The first day on the job as Carson’s assistant, one of his men died under my watch. He took me to the walker yard and nearly choked the life out of me. I had bruises around my neck and waist for days.”

“But he knows you now. Before, he didn’t, and don’t take this the wrong way, but you weren’t exactly a ray of sunshine when you rolled up in here,” Sherry pointed out. “You made it a point to defy him wherever you could, and it nearly got you killed. Negan doesn’t _like_ hurting or killing women, but he’s not above doing it if one of them steps out of line.”

“That’s just _it_. I don’t want to fall in line behind him. But I don’t want to end up dead either.”

“I’m going to be frank—you get away with a lot more than anyone else does, except for me. First Lady privileges and all. Don’t think it goes unnoticed. People avoided you when you first got here, when you had those bruises, because they thought you were trouble. Now, you chip in, do your job, and you have friends. Not to mention Negan’s taken a definite liking to you.”

Olivia grunted and drained her glass. “I’m not sure what to say to that. You don’t mind? My physical attraction to him that is?”

Sherry shrugged and tipped her glass back, sipping slowly. “Why would I? I don’t harbor any feelings for the man except for a mutual respect between us. Sure, we sleep together, but that’s all it is.”

“I know about Dwight,” said Olivia suddenly. Sherry froze. “It was all over your face earlier today. I know bits and pieces, and I won’t make you tell me, but you’ve listened to me bitch and moan over a man I shouldn’t want so now it’s my turn.”

Sherry glanced uneasily around the room before setting her glass down on the table. “Dwight and I…are married— _were_ married before all this. I had a sister named Tina, and she had diabetes. Dwight and I didn’t have enough points for her insulin, so one day we stole it and ran. The three of us. Eventually, we went back, and Negan threatened to kill Dwight for running off and stealing from him. So I made Negan a deal—I become his wife, and Dwight lives. He agreed, but he punished Dwight by ironing the side of his face.”

A thought suddenly occurred to Olivia as she listened. “Is that where you were earlier? When you said you had “things” to take care of?” Sherry averted her eyes while Olivia widened hers. “Are you nuts? Sleeping with Dwight while Negan’s _in_ the compound? If he catches you, you’re both dead.”

Her friend grew defensive. “It’s not as easy as it looks, Olivia. I still love Dwight, with all my heart, and I always will. I can’t just…throw that away because of Negan. He and Tina were the only ones I had, and now, it’s just him.”

Olivia leaned forward, her eyes piercing as she rested her elbows on her knees. “You have me. But Jesus, Sherry, you should have really thought about that one. How long has this been going on?”

“Just…a couple months.” Olivia pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. “I’ve got it handled, all right? Just don’t worry about me.”

“You’re making it hard not to.”

“So,” Sherry said perkily, sitting up straighter, “what are you going to do about your little Negan problem?”

“Ideally I’d like to just tamp the beast down until it goes away, but somehow, after seeing so many corny romantic comedies, that isn’t going to be easy.” Olivia took a pull straight out of the bottle.

“You ever think you should just sleep with him and get it over with? He wouldn’t say no.”

Olivia barked a laugh. “I don’t worry about rejection. I worry about the before and the after. I think I just need to ignore it, let it fade on its own.”

“And if it doesn’t? Then what? You’re right back at square one.”

“Then I’ll cross that fiery bridge when I come to it. Do you wanna dance? I feel like dancing. I think I saw some speakers and an ancient iPod in here somewhere.” Olivia rummaged around, finally locating a small, but suitable, wireless speaker and an iPod. She picked a playlist and music poured out of the speakers.

The whiskey was loosening the tension and anxiety and relaxing her enough to move her feet. She danced to some 80’s rock song, the bottle of Canadian Club in her hand, while Sherry watched on his mild amusement.

“Come on, Sher,” she yelled over the volume. Her cheeks were flushed with drink and her mood was quickly lifting. “I know you know how to dance. Come on!”

With a roll of her eyes, Sherry eased herself off the chair and began moving next to her, laughing. They danced into the night, long after they finished the bottle of whiskey. Both women were feeling good and buzzed and relaxed, needing this night to let go of every worry they normally carried.

Olivia moved her hips in time with the music; she’d never been an expert dancer, but the whiskey made her movements fluid and nearly flawless. She held her arms above her head as some more recent pop song came on, and Sherry began singing loudly and drunkenly along with the words. In the middle of the second chorus, the music suddenly cut off. Sherry whined while Olivia picked up the iPod to see that they’d drained the battery.

“Party’s over,” she muttered, feeling tired and slightly nauseous as the alcohol swirled around in her stomach. “Probably for the better. Negan told me not to make it a late night.”

“Oh did he now?” Sherry asked with eyebrows raised. Olivia shot her a look that she pointedly ignored. “Probably for the better. I’ll see you, Liv.”

Olivia nodded, and Sherry took her leave. Not long after, Olivia changed into her flannel sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt and climbed into bed, settling amongst the pillows.

Her talk with Sherry had done fuck all to help her figure out a solution to her Negan problem, but it did shed a little light on the less logical perspective. He _was_ an attractive man, and Olivia reasoned that if she slept with him, it didn’t have to mean anything. But even she wasn’t that naïve to think it never _would_ remain as nothing. She knew what happened with people who always claimed “no strings attached”. In the end, they either ended up happy or they ended up burned, and in the new world, all Olivia would be was burned.

“Fuck,” she groaned, rolling onto her side to shove her face into the pillow. She’d ignore it; it had to go away at some point. It was just her body telling her what she was clearly deprived of—nothing more, nothing less. If worse came to worst, she’d find another willing participant. There were other attractive men in the Sanctuary, and she was a pretty woman; it wouldn’t be too hard to find someone.

Her head swam as she closed her eyes and groaned again. She hated the spins. She willed them to go away as she tried to relax into the mattress, and fortunately, a drunken sleep found her not long after.

* * *

She was woken roughly the next morning by pounding on her bedroom door. She came to slowly, her vision blurred and her head throbbing something awful. She was in the same position she’d passed out in the night before—face-down with her head shoved in the pillow. The comforter was tangled in her legs, and she was missing one sock. A wave of nostalgia passed through her, and then it quickly morphed into nausea.

“Oh god,” she mumbled, disentangling herself and making a break for the bathroom. She just made it before she was bent over the toilet, heaving up both her dinner and the whiskey she’d drank last night. Absently she wondered if Sherry felt as bad as she did, but the thought was quickly dismissed with another hard knock on her door.

“I’m coming!” she wheezed, straightening after flushing the toilet. She looked down at herself—in her pajamas, her shirt twisted and one sock missing. Sighing, she straightened herself out and pulled off her one sock.

Simon, to her great displeasure, was behind the door when she pulled it open. He was leaning an arm against the doorframe, and when he took her in, he smirked.

“Morning sunshine,” he chirped, a toothpick hanging out the side of his mouth. Olivia sneered.

“Simon, to what do I _not_ owe the pleasure?” She crossed her arms over her chest when she caught him eying her, levelling him with a glare. His smirk only widened at her question.

“We’re going on a run—you and me.”

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose impatiently. “What are you talking about?”

“I said, you and me are going on a run. Get the horses ready,” he ordered. He shoved off the door frame with one more slow look at her, up and down. Her insides rolled, and not from the hangover. As he strode down the hall, she leaned her head out.

“Horses?” she called out.

“That’s right, sweetheart.” She grimaced and recoiled back into her room, shutting the door and leaning against it. _A run_ , she thought, _a run with Simon_. _Peachy._

The only positive outcome of this situation was being able to determine how the horses handled being out there. The thought of being in the saddle again seemed to diminish any negative thoughts she harbored for being paired up with _Simon_ of all people. She dressed quickly in her jeans, boots, a long sleeve shirt and a leather vest. Her weapons were strapped to the belt she quickly buckled around her waist. She shoved her matted hair in a baseball cap and swept from the room.

She all but raced to the barn and had two horses—Daredevil and a small bay gelding that she thought would suit Simon perfectly—saddled by the time Simon met her by the front gate. He stared in boredom at the horse and groaned when Olivia shoved the reins into his hands. She swung gracefully into the saddle and Daredevil shifted under her weight. The new kid, David, stepped forward and handed her a pack that she swung onto her shoulder and a baseball bat—she inwardly cringed—that she shoved into her saddlebag; she thanked him with a smile and chuckled when he stepped back with a blush.

Simon was a lot clumsier climbing aboard his own mount, and the older horse didn’t seem to take too kindly to being jerked on. He tossed his head impatiently as Simon settled himself in the saddle and picked up the reins, looking every bit a city-slicker trying to play cowboy. She smirked in his direction as he tried to get his mount under control, reaching down to grab the handgun and spare magazines being offered to him, as well as a red-handled machete. Finally, he roughly kicked his horse forward—Olivia rolled her eyes and nudged Daredevil with her calves and the two set off out of the gates.

They trotted down the road, their horses’ hooves clip-clopping on the pavement. It was the only sound in the tense silence between them. Olivia risked a glance at him and sighed at the sight of him playing tug-of-war with his horse’s mouth.

“Lower your hands,” she told him, her voice carrying across the pavement. “He’ll stop fighting if you give him his head.”

“What makes you an expert?” he retorted smartly. However, it didn’t go unnoticed when he did as she said, and immediately his horse softened.

“Used to do this before everything,” she replied shortly. She let her eyes roam the tree line beside her, watching for movement. “Where are we going?”

“Saw a small town few days ago on a scout. Seemed pretty empty. Carson needs more medical supplies.”

“How’d you get Negan to agree to taking me out on a run?” was her next question after a few beats of silence.

“I didn’t. It was his idea.” Olivia’s head swiveled towards Simon, and one dark eyebrow quirked. Her response was a wide smirk. “Seems like the boss has taken a liking to you and your beasts of burden. Can’t think of a reason why. You’re clearly not putting out and these things smell terrible.”

She rolled her eyes and leaned forward to give Daredevil an affectionate pat on the neck. “And what do you think you smell like? Because it sure as hell ain’t roses. Plus, Negan’s smart. He knows the benefits of traveling on horseback. That’s why he leads the Saviors and you’re merely a lieutenant.”

She pointedly ignored the glower Simon aimed at her, and out of the corner of her eye she saw his face go beet red with anger. She fought off a triumphant smirk, not wanting to goad Simon into a bickering match. Instead she turned her attention to the tree line, watching for movement from both the living and the undead.

They rode in stiff silence a while, passing by abandoned houses, shutters hanging off the hinges. They trotted past a two-car wreck with the bodies still inside, and soon, yards ahead of them, the trees and road opened up to a four-way intersection. A rusted stop sign on a bent stake leered at them and Olivia huffed at the normalcy of stopping at it. But Simon pressed his horse right on through, reining his horse to the left. A few roamers lingered in the middle of the road, still oblivious to the arrival of the living.

“It’s that way. Let’s get rid of these guys quietly, huh?” With that, he dismounted and led his horse down the lane, Olivia following suit. They let their reins drop on the grass beside the road and unsheathed their melee weapons from their saddlebags. By now, the roamers had taken notice of them and moved towards the living bodies with renewed vigor, growling and snapping their ugly maws.

Olivia stepped forward, twirling her bat in her hands. She kicked out at the first roamer’s shin, bringing it to its knees. With a deft and experienced swing, the aluminum bat made contact, the metal ringing as the roamer’s skull caved in from impact. It fell backwards, still snarling, until Olivia brought the bat down again. Blood coated her bat and her hands; she shook both off as Simon dispatched two of the remaining roamers, leaving the last one for her. She danced away from its outstretched fingers, the nails long and cracked from abuse. The roamer staggered forward, and Olivia raised the bat and brought it down hard on the back of its head, knocking it face-first into the pavement. It made contact with a sickening crunch and splat. Her boot finished it off, crushing the softened skull to mush.

Both Olivia and Simon were breathing hard when they returned to the horses, the animals grazing beside the road. Olivia wiped the blood off her bat in the grass and shoved it back into her bag, climbed into the saddle. The pair broke into a light canter, keeping to the grass to avoid creating any unnecessary noise.

They rode for an hour in silence before any sign of the town appeared, and their sign was just that—an old, rickety wooden sign, the name of the town faded to nearly nothing. They slowed the horses to a brisk walk, wanting to get in as silently as possible. The trees soon gave way to open sky, and down a small slope stood the silhouette of the town.

“Maybe we should hide the horses in the trees. We can move faster and lower on our feet,” Olivia muttered as they halted. They observed the quiet, and seemingly abandoned, town from afar, formulating a plan. Simon glanced at her, his moustache twitching over his lip, and he nodded. They made quick work of dismounting and leading the horses back into the trees, tying them to a pair of sturdy birch trees.

They withdrew their guns from their saddlebags and slid them into the waistbands of their jeans. Simon led the way, keeping as low to the ground as he could without tripping. Olivia followed along silently, her eyes scanning the open space of land between the town and the safety of the trees. As they entered the town, she kept one eye on the lone roamer staggering up the street in the opposite direction. Simon crept up to the side of a brick building, pressing himself against it to remain hidden from any person or roamer they hadn’t seen yet. Olivia crouched in front of him and slowly angled her neck to peer around the corner of the building. The roamer at the end of the street stumbled lazily. Other than it, the street remained quiet. It unnerved her.

Simon indicated the pharmacy across the street with a jerk of his chin. “We’ll check there first. You go, and I’ll cover you.” Olivia leered at him, briefly wondering if this was an attempt to get her killed for the shit she’d spouted at him earlier. “Don’t give me that look. _Go._ ”

With another glare, Olivia remained low and ran across the street, sure to keep her steps as light and silent as possible. When she crouched behind an abandoned car in front of the town, she turned back to Simon, who was aiming his handgun down the street, his eyes vigilant for any movement. She waved him over, covering him like he did for her, until he knelt beside her. They each took an end of the car, continuing to watch the street. When all seemed clear, Simon ushered Olivia forward towards the entrance of the pharmacy. The glass in the door had been blown out and lay in pieces just inside the doorway.

Olivia hesitated outside. The pharmacy was dark inside, save for the one flickering fluorescent bulb at the back of the store. Sliding her gun from her pants, she raised it and banged the butt of the grip on the door frame, causing Simon to jump.

“The fuck you doing?” he hissed. She hushed him and waited. From the back of the store came an unmistakable groan. The walker was on the floor, sliding across the tile. The flickering light illuminated it as it crawled towards them, its legs for whatever reason unusable.

“Gotta know what kind of shit we’re stepping into,” she explained to Simon without a backwards glance. She lifted a boot and stepped into the darkened store, her boots crunching on the broken glass, keeping one eye on the walker on the floor and the other on the darkened parts of the store that remained unchecked.

As Olivia neared the walker, the reason for its mode of transportation became clear—its legs had been hacked off at the knees, and a trail of black blood was left in its wake. Olivia made quick work of it, choosing to ram a broken piece of shelving into its temple. It fell with a thud on the tile, the shelving embedded in its skull. Olivia stepped past it and heard Simon in the aisle on her left, shuffling through the shelves, which were unfortunately mostly bare.

She perused the shelves, shoving whatever she could into the shopping basket she’d grabbed. The counter to the pharmacy lay ahead, shadows playing on the shelves under the flickering light. Looking around, Olivia set her basket on the counter and hefted herself onto the countertop to hop down on the other side. Simon was still poking through whatever supplies he could find, leaving Olivia to tackle the darkened pharmacy counter on her own. Using the flickering light and the sunlight streaming through the door as her guides, she stepped carefully between the shelves, picking up bottles and prescription bags to read the medications listed on each one. She found a surprising number of antibiotics in this day and age and promptly tossed them into the basket. She also found some strong painkillers and some birth control pills. She stared long at the packet of pills, wondering what their shelf life might be, before shrugging and tossing those in, too. Perhaps Carson knew.

With the pharmacy nearly emptied, Olivia slid back over the counter to find Simon. Toting her collection, she walked by every aisle, but Simon was nowhere to be found.

“Simon,” she called in a loud whisper. When he didn’t answer, her voice reached its regular volume and she called again. A shuffling in the back of the store drew her attention and, with her gun at the ready, she moved towards the noise. A dirty restroom sign pointed her in the right direction, and she jumped when Simon suddenly exited the men’s room, zipping up his jeans.

“Jesus,” she hissed in annoyance.

“What? Man’s gotta go when a man’s gotta go.”

Olivia rolled her eyes and gestured towards the exit. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.”

The duo left the store, shielded their eyes against the sunlight. They performed the same task with the other stores in the small town until each one had been cleared of any supplies left over. Olivia and Simon left the town as silently as they entered and split their loads between them, shoving everything into the meager saddlebags. Olivia gently placed her gun in the saddlebag, making sure that the safety was on, before swinging gracefully up into the saddle.

“Let’s head back to that intersection. I wanna check out something else in another direction. We still got plenty of daylight left,” Simon told her as they turned their horses around.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” she replied hesitantly. She eyed the sun in the sky warily, wondering just how long they had left before night fell. She didn’t quite fancy being outside the Sanctuary at night, and as an afterthought, she didn’t think Negan would either.

The brief thought of the leader of the Saviors sent an uncomfortable shiver up her spine. Her drunken mind the night before had plagued her with thoughts of him, played out scenes that, had she been sober, would have had her blushing. Since she hadn’t been sober, she allowed herself to indulge in the scenarios her creative mind had come up with. She’d done well to keep her thoughts from Negan throughout the day, but as the day wore on and her tiredness creeped in, her resolve was slipping.

The horses’ hooves on the pavement was the only sound between them after Olivia had given Simon a brief rundown of what she’d gathered. He seemed impressed, especially after finding out she’d been pre-med before the turn and knew what she was grabbing.

“What exactly needs checking out that can’t wait another week?” Olivia asked as they neared the intersection. Simon had his attention focused on the street going to the left of their current position, but Olivia was unsure of what he was actually focused on.

He didn’t answer her as he turned the little bay horse to walk on the grass and into the trees that flanked the empty road. Apprehension settled in Olivia’s gut, but she nudged Daredevil to follow, refusing to leave Simon alone even if he was an asshole. The horses picked their way through the trees, weaving in and out of birches, maples, and oaks and stepping over fallen trunks. She heard Simon curse as his skin got snagged on a hanging vine riddled with thorns, which Olivia made sure to avoid.

When they came to a stream in the middle of the trees, Olivia kept her eyes peeled for movement around them. Since they started this little side trip, they’d come across no roamers, and that, to her, was suspicious enough to have her on alert. She allowed Daredevil to drink momentarily from the stream before she was pulling his head up and backing away from the shore.

“Simon, we need to go back. There’s nothing out here.” She then voiced her concern over the lack of roamers, but Simon seemed adamant to ignore her. He pushed them forward to cross the stream and Olivia cursed under her breath as she and Daredevil followed, the water drenching her boots and the hems of her jeans. Apprehension turned to fear in her gut, rolling in a typhoon that made her nauseous.

Ahead of them, the trees opened to a clearing; it was the length of a football field, and the trees seemed even thicker on the other side, shrouding anything else in shadows. Sunlight illuminated the field, turning the grass almost yellow-gold. The horses remained within the cover of the trees, and still, there were no roamers. In fact, there was no noise at all as Simon and Olivia squinted across the clearing—no birds, no forest critters. It made Olivia nervous.

“Simon, I don’t like this,” she murmured firmly, turning a pointed look in the man’s direction. Beneath her, Daredevil shifted nervously, prancing in place. Likewise, Simon’s mount began tossing his head, his ears swiveling around his head, on alert. “Simon, we need to leave. _Now_.”

The urgency in her voice appeared to get through to him, and she saw him nod and turn his horse around. As she was doing the same, the unexpected sound of gunfire split the silence. Simon’s mount whinnied in fright, and Daredevil crow-hopped to the side. Simon yelled out for them to move, Olivia cursed as another bullet found home in a tree trunk five feet from her head, and that was all it took for her to spin her horse around and spur him into a gallop.

Adrenaline coursed through her as the horses tore through the trees and each second was punctuated with a gunshot. The stream was near, and as Olivia prepared Daredevil for the leap, her back suddenly exploded in a white-hot burst of pain, right beneath her shoulder blade, that radiated from the source outwards. The horses jumped the stream as they approached it, and Simon nearly lost his seat as his mount soared over the four-foot distance. The landing jostled Olivia, and she hissed a curse as her back throbbed. Fear gripped her as she pushed Daredevil faster, and she withheld a sigh of relief as they broke through the trees and closed in on the intersection. Simon surprised her, however, when instead of slowing to a walk, he pushed his horse faster, anxious to return to the Sanctuary.

Olivia’s breathing was ragged as she fought to keep herself in the saddle, her back numbing from the adrenaline. Her legs gripped Daredevil’s sides as she pressed him on with her seat and her voice. The stale and humid air provided little relief from the heat, and sweat drenched her baseball cap and plastered her shirt and vest to her body, seeping into the bullet wound, causing it to sting in irritation. Still, they kept the breakneck pace until the Sanctuary’s gates loomed over them.

Suddenly the gates were opening, and the horses came to a skidding halt on the dirt. Saviors and citizens alike approached the pair, eyes wide with curiosity and fear of their sudden arrival. Beneath her, Daredevil was breathing hard and she felt his muscles twitching. As the shock wore off, she was reminded of her gunshot wound when the sweat dripping down her back touched it. Her hands were shaking as she dropped the reins and moved to dismount, crying out when her back protested the twisting movement. The pain was paralyzing as it stretched up her back and down the back of her right leg, right to the knee.

She fell from the saddle, landing on her backside that caused her to inhale sharply as she was blinded by the pain in her back. Saviors crowded her as she lay back in the dirt, her vision blurring and faded at the edges. She squeezed her eyes shut as the pain became almost unbearable, and she was vaguely aware that she was being lifted into someone’s arms. When her back protested again, sending another jolt through her back, she lost consciousness. 

* * *

 

Negan was shaking with rage by the time he’d heard what had happened to Olivia. Simon, the slimy weasel, was nowhere to be found when the leader of the Saviors barreled out of his bedroom after Dwight had come to fetch him. The younger man had barely gotten the words “gunshot” and “Olivia” out of his mouth before his boss was propelling from the chair and sweeping from the room so fast it nearly gave Dwight whiplash. Not only was Negan enraged that someone was shooting at _his_ people, but he was downright furious that Olivia had actually gotten hurt. Rage drove him to shove open the stairwell door with the force of a bull, causing the door to slam against the wall so hard it chipped the paint.

Down in Carson’s exam room, Negan slowed his pace and for the first time, fear clenched in his gut as he peered in through the window. The blinds made it difficult to see, but he could surely make out the still form of Olivia laying face-down on the bed. Carson stood at her hip and was taking a pair of scissors to her long-sleeved shirt. Negan stepped into the doorway, his gaze locked onto the unconscious woman on the mattress. Carson glanced at him warily, apprehension pausing his movements as he watched his boss warily.

“I just got her,” he started, resuming his snipping, “I haven’t seen what the damage is yet. I can send for you when I’m finished?”

Negan silenced him with a look and he stepped closer to the bed. Olivia was passed out, sweating coating her forehead. Her eyelids fluttered, and he released a quiet breath. Slowly he let his gaze travel down her back, where Carson was cutting away her shirt. The doctor pulled the two ends open, revealing her bare back to them both. Negan’s muscles clenched at the ugly bullet hole in her skin, just below her shoulder blade. He didn’t miss Carson’s sigh, and he cut his eyes to the doctor.

“What?” he barked. Carson jumped, glancing fearfully at Negan, before bending over the wound. It was oozing blood slowly, which was a good sign. What wasn’t as good a sign was that there was no exit wound. He’d have to dig the bullet out, and the process would be far from painless.

“I have to retrieve the bullet before her body heals itself around it. But I don’t have any anesthesia, and it’s going to be very painful for her,” Carson explained remorsefully. Negan chewed on the inside of his cheek before his hands moved to the belt around his waist. Carson, picking up on what his boss was doing, began to do the same, and the men bound her wrists to the metal headboard.

As Carson prepared his utensils, setting them on a tray and washing and disinfecting his hands, Negan pulled a chair up beside the bed by Olivia’s head. Carson rolled his cart over to his patient, sliding rubber gloves onto his hands. He picked up a long, needlelike instrument and glanced at Negan.

“I need to see how far the bullet it before I go digging around.”

With a deep breath, Carson leaned over and inserted the tool into the bullet wound. Almost immediately, the scorching pain woke Olivia from unconsciousness and her body jerked off the mattress. Carson quickly removed the tool before she impaled herself and created a bigger problem. Olivia’s dark head whipped around, eyes wild with fright and confusion. Negan was out of his chair, kneeling beside her head with his hands in her hair.

“Hey,” he murmured in what he hoped was a soothing voice. Olivia whirled to face him, recognition in her eyes, and it seemed just that fact alone calmed her. She laid her head back on the pillow, squeezing her eyes shut.

“What happened?” she whispered. As if in answer, her back throbbed painfully and she winced. She was aware of Negan’s hand on her head, his thumb running across her hair gently.

“You were shot,” he told her, a twinge of anger in his tone. He clenched his jaw as Olivia deflated, and he frowned at the lone tear that escaped from her eye, rolled down her cheek, and disappeared into the fabric of the pillowcase.

“How bad is it?” was her next question. Her eyes were still shut, as if she almost didn’t want to know.

“I was just about to find out,” Carson replied before sighing. “It’s going to hurt, I’m not going to lie.”

Olivia blew out a breath, rustling the hair that fell in front of her face and nodded. “Let’s get it over with.”

The pain that came next ripped a shout from her throat. At the site of the wound, she could feel Carson’s tool digging around for the bullet still lodged inside her. She screwed her eyes shut as her fingers curled over the bars on the metal headboard; Negan’s hand was still in her hair and he’d placed his free hand on her arm, trying to rub calm circles into her skin. She felt like a cheap game of Operation; every jostle of the tool sent white-hot pain to every nerve ending, searing them. She felt the tool make contact with the bullet, and then the offending instrument was gone. But she knew it wasn’t over.

“Okay, I’ve located the bullet,” Carson said.

“Yeah, I felt it,” Olivia responded through clenched teeth. She knew what was coming next, and fear gripped her.

“Now comes the hard part.”

Olivia opened her eyes and met Negan’s. His dark eyes were clouded over with worry—for her, she realized. But she also saw anger—also perhaps for her—as well as…was that fear? He was afraid for her? Just knowing that alone made her eyes sting, and she felt the overwhelming need to hold his hand. She tugged with her left hand against her restraints until Negan picked up on what she was asking. She saw the hesitation and then the resignation as he reached over to unwind the belt from her wrist. Her arm shot out and the grip she had on his hand was nearly painful. But he scooted the chair closer to her and gave her a comforting nod. Returning it, Olivia closed her eyes as she heard Carson moving around on his cart.

“Try not to move, sweetheart,” Carson’s smooth voice carried over to her. Feeling another onslaught of tears, Olivia shut her eyes again, blocking Negan out, but her fingers tightened around his.

Negan felt his heart stop at the scream that came from Olivia’s mouth, a shrill, shrieking sound that would have been better served in a horror movie. Her hand tightened on his, and he felt his fingers cramping, but he ignored it. He closed his eyes as Olivia screamed again, wanting nothing more than to pummel Carson into the ground for causing her so much pain. He bent his head over the edge of the mattress, his face close to her head. Suddenly, it was silent as Olivia’s scream cut short and her hand went limp around his. His eyes snapped open and a fear unlike anything he’d ever known took him over. He looked over Olivia, thinking she’d died, but the jumping pulse point in her throat proved him wrong. He heaved a heavy breath; she’d passed out again. He kept her hand enclosed in his own as Carson continued working, struggling to extract the bullet.

Time seemed to slow down as he worked, and Negan glanced up when the sound of a little _ping_ signified that the bullet had been successfully removed. Olivia was still out, but her breathing was even. Carson then disinfected the wound with hydrogen peroxide and he had Negan sit her up so that he could wrap her wound in gauze. Negan, for once, kept his eyes north of her chest as her shirt was fully removed, and he wondered when he’d gone soft—figuratively, because it sure as hell wasn’t literally.

When Carson had finished and he had cleaned up, he left Negan alone with his patient, but not before casting a curious glance over his shoulder. Negan sat stiffly in his chair, his hand still entwined with hers, as he refused to let her go. The fear he’d felt moments ago, and still felt even now, took him by surprise. He hadn’t felt like that since, well, ever, if his memory served him right. Not even when his wife was diagnosed with cancer was he afraid. Even when she died, and she turned, forcing him to put her down for good, and leaving him to face the end of the world, he wasn’t afraid. Confused as all hell, but not afraid. At this moment, his fear seemed unjustified to him. Olivia was tough as nails, but when he heard she’d been shot, he was suddenly on the warpath. He knew he needed to find out who did this to her, but first, he would wait for her to rouse, wait for her to heal for a few days before asking her what happened.

He ground his teeth angrily. The object of his anger was clear across the compound, hiding out with his tail between his legs, but Negan found he was also angry with himself. Angry for creating a sudden weakness to himself—Olivia. Fear made him weak, and Negan was sure as fuck not _weak_. He didn’t feel fear, he didn’t feel pain. But he’d felt both of those emotions today, and all over one woman.

Christ, he was so going soft.

He was roused from his thoughts when Olivia’s hand shifted beneath his sometime later. He sat straighter in the chair as Olivia came to. Her other wrist had been released from the headboard, and she used that hand to rub the haziness from her vision. The pain in her back and shoulder made her groan, and the feeling of her left hand being weighted down made her freeze. Her eyes blinked slowly and slid from the pillow to the arm attached to the hand that was entwined with hers. Negan met her stare, relief evident on his features.

“Morning sunshine,” he greeted with his signature grin. His eyes lacked their usual brightness however, and Olivia instantly recognized the worry that he tried to hide.

“How long have I been out?” she asked gruffly, finally pulling her hand free. Negan flexed his fingers and folded his arms across his chest.

“About an hour. How’s the pain?” Olivia winced as she lifted her head, the movement bending her spine and aggravating her wound.

“About an eight going on nine,” she replied, her voice tight. Negan sharply nodded and shot up from the chair. Carson was standing just outside the door, opting to give his leader and his patient some privacy.

“She’s awake. Could use some painkillers.”

The doctor swept into the room and over to the medicine cabinet, pulling an orange pill bottle out and unscrewing the top. He handed her an oblong white pill and a cup of water, both of which she threw back quickly before laying her head back down.

“Do we know who shot me?” she asked, clearing her throat. Now that she was awake, her memory was piecing together what had happened. Cleaning out the pharmacy, heading back to the intersection, Simon diverting them. She stilled, and Negan watched her eyes harden as they met his. “Where’s Simon?”

Negan wouldn’t lie, the menacing tone in her voice made him nervous. She hadn’t gotten around to using it with him, but he was thankful that today wasn’t going to be the first.

“Little weasel slinked off who the fuck knows where,” he growled, mirroring her anger. “He’ll be appropriately punished. Why did he lead you out there?”

“Fuck if I know.” _Goddamn she makes dirty words sound pretty._ “He said there was something else he wanted to check out, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“Do you remember exactly where you were when you got shot?” He hadn’t anticipated questioning her so soon, but if she was awake and willing, he wasn’t going to complain.

“Absolutely.” Her eyelids fluttered, and suddenly she felt dizzy. “Holy shit, Doc, those are some kickass painkillers.” The pain in her back had gone completely numb, and with the pain not there to keep her awake, she felt her eyes getting heavy.

“Sleep, Olivia,” Negan ordered quietly, rising from the chair. He jerked a nod at Carson and made to move, but, to his surprise, her arm shot out and her hand curled around his forearm.

“Don’t leave,” she mumbled, voice heavy with sleep. Negan allowed a small, genuine smile curl his lips as he sat back down, and her hand slid into his.

“I’ll be right here,” he murmured back. Olivia sighed heavily, and within moments she was deeply asleep.


	11. Chapter 11

The next time Olivia woke, she was alone, and she deduced that it was dark outside, if the dimmed lighting in the hallway was anything to go by. Her pain medication was wearing off, and her back and shoulder throbbed dully. Her mouth felt like sandpaper, and she wondered if she’d have the strength to get up for a cup of water. Propping herself up on her good side, she groaned at the resistance in her back but pushed on until her boots hit the tile floor. With all the grace of a newborn gazelle, she walked to the sink, reaching for a plastic cup. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep, but she faintly remembered Negan sticking around for a while. She recalled reaching out for him as Carson prepared to dig the bullet out of her skin and squeezing his hand through the pain. Another groan slipped past her lips as she dug the heel of her left hand into her eye. There was no way he wouldn’t tease her relentlessly, just to get the upper hand. So much for waiting for her attraction to pass.

Once her throat didn’t feel so damn dry, she tossed the cup in the sink and headed back to the bed. The brief exertion of energy had her muscles aching already. With a sigh, she gently lowered herself back into the pillow on her stomach to avoid irritating her wound site. While she waited for sleep, she let her mind wander. She’d thought it was her ears playing tricks on her, but when Negan was here and speaking with her, asking her questions about what had happened, he sounded…afraid. The fact that he was afraid for her didn’t sit well in her stomach, and at the same time, she felt at least a little bit of pride knowing he was capable of such an emotion, and she’d been the one to evoke it. Perhaps it was the pain medication, but she let a girlish giggle bubble out of her mouth before hiding her face in her pillow as if she wasn’t alone. She had Negan scared. Who’d be teasing who now?

Her internal war continued until her mind was so frazzled it put her to sleep again. This time, it was the pain in her back returning at full force that had her hissing herself awake. Unlike the last time she woke, she wasn’t alone. Both Carson and Sherry were in the room, the latter occupying the same chair Negan had been the day before. It touched her heart that Sherry had not only thought to check up on her, but that she looked sincerely worried for her friend’s safety.

“You’re awake!” Sherry chirped, sitting upright once she noticed her friend’s activity. “How do you feel?”

“Like I got shot,” was her good-natured reply. Sherry smiled sadly and leaned forward to take her hand.

“How’s your pain level?” Carson asked.

“Getting worse—probably a high seven right now,” she responded through gritted teeth as the nerves in her back reminded her of her injury.

“God, I was so worried about you. Negan told me what happened.”  Carson handed Olivia another pain pill and a cup of water. She threw both back quickly and awkwardly.

“Did he find Simon?” Olivia asked. Sherry hesitated before answering.

“He did. He’s going to question him officially, find out what the hell he was doing out there. He’ll probably be punished; he put you in danger.”

“I’d love to get my hands around that weasel neck of his and throttle him. When can I get out of here and do just that?” she asked, aiming the question at Carson, who smiled wryly.

“Considering you were just shot yesterday, and your body needs time to recover and heal, I’d say you’ll have to wait a couple of days before throttling anyone.”

“Dammit.”

“Are you hungry? I could go grab you some lunch.” As if in answer, Olivia’s stomach grumbled, though the sound was muffled by the mattress.

“I’d love that. Can I at least sit up, doc? My back is cramping.” With Carson’s assistance, and an adequate cushion of pillows, Olivia was able to sit upright in the bed. Sherry disappeared and then reappeared a few moments later with a tray of peaches, a sandwich, and a bottle of water.

Olivia ate slowly despite the growling in her stomach and made small talk with Sherry. Her thoughts continuously drifted back to Simon and Negan, and what punishment would await the former for leading one of his Saviors into danger.

She stilled at that realization. _She was a Savior._ Not just someone who worked for points anymore; now that she had be permitted to go on an unsupervised run, she’d inadvertently climbed the hierarchy. She wasn’t sure she was quite up there with Dwight and Simon, but she was getting close, especially if Simon was booted down a few notches after Negan was done with him.

After she finished lunch and had taken another pain pill, she felt herself growing drowsy. Sherry stayed by her bed until she fell asleep, rolling onto her stomach to avoid aggravating her wound site. Her sleep was fitful, and she woke up more than once for a few moments only to conk back out. Her dreams played tricks on her, filled with roamers, Simon, and bashed-in skulls.

The next time she woke up, she was in pain, having rolled onto her back and pressed on her wound. She woke with a strangled gasp, the burst of pain bringing her to consciousness. When her vision cleared, she noticed Negan was standing in the doorway again, and Carson had his hand on her shoulder, watching her in concern.

“You rolled over onto your back, irritated your stitches,” he told her.

“No shit,” she hissed. Negan’s mouth quirked upwards briefly and he stepped further into the room. Carson helped turn her so he could make sure she hadn’t ripped the stitches out. When he was finished, he gave her another dose of medication and swept from the room.

“Where’s the skunk?” Olivia asked Negan as he continued to take interest in his boots. He glanced up at her, raising an eyebrow questioningly. “You look like you had a bad run-in with a skunk, scrunching your nose up like that.”

“Not having a good day, dollface.” His tone revealed his distress, and Olivia took note of the heaviness in his eyes as he lowered his tall frame into the chair beside the bed. He ran a hand over his face tiredly.

“Where’s Simon?” she asked, quickly piecing together the cause of his current state of mind. He looked at her slowly and blinked; her stomach dropped.

“I haven’t done anything to him. Yet.” He growled the last syllable, and Olivia sighed quietly in relief.

“Good. I want a shot at him before you do,” she grumbled, lifting her neck to fluff her pillow. Negan smirked at her, and she thought it strange that she didn’t like him when he wasn’t his charismatic, asshole self. He laced his fingers together and leaned forward in the chair, worrying his bottom lip. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Again, he smirked, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “My thoughts are worth more than a fucking penny, dollface.”

“Well, unfortunately, I think that’s all I have in my pocket, so you’re just gonna have to write me an IOU.” She grinned when her joke coaxed a genuine smile out of him.

“Think your meds are making you loopy, doll.”

She shrugged as best as she could while on her stomach. “I was always convinced I was already halfway there anyways. You gonna tell me what’s really wrong?”

Negan scrutinized her a few beats, considering. It would be the first time he’d really talked to someone about how he was feeling, besides Sherry. But what Sherry knew barely even scratched the surface of the dark recesses of his mind. But here was Olivia, a woman who owed him nothing, especially because he’d not only threatened her more than once, but had actually put his hands on her—and not in the way he wanted to. Finally, he sighed.

“We’ve got a problem now. This new group that shot at you… They’re a threat and they need to be handled.”

“Has Slippery Simon told you anything else? Maybe why we were there in the first place?”

He shook his head. “No. Just said he wanted to get a head start on our next scouting trip, see if there was anything worth checking out in that direction.”

“You believe him?” Olivia asked doubtfully. Negan arched one eyebrow defiantly, his eyes glimmering with a mix of suspicion and rage.

“Simon’s my number two. I trust him with my life.”

“Seems like your number two should’ve filled you in on all his little side plans.” Negan’s eyes flashed, and she swallowed quickly before shrugging her good shoulder. “Just saying. You gave him one specific mission and he went off on something else. And heading off into unchecked territory is not a smart idea. We’re lucky just this happened. If we’d run into a herd, or an even bigger group, we would’ve been well and truly fucked.”

He didn’t want to see her reasonable side, but she was all but shoving it obviously in his face so that he was forced to. Simon had disobeyed him, and not only did he put himself at risk, but he put another in danger as well. If they had run into even more trouble, Negan wouldn’t even know where to look for them. He grinded his teeth in frustration and glared at the wall. When he exhaled deeply and glanced back at Olivia, she was asleep yet again.

 

Olivia spent a total of four days in the infirmary before Carson would allow her to leave and sleep in her own bed, having wanted to be sure an infection hadn’t set in. He gave her a prescription of painkillers and expressed his desire to see her working by his side soon. The stitches were still intact, and he promised her that they could come out in the next day or two, depending on how her wound healed over. She was slow on her feet at first and her muscles tired easily, but she was determined to get herself back to her former strength.

“I have no idea how I ever had two lazy days in bed before the turn,” she said, rolling her sore and stiff shoulder. “Four days in bed just about zapped me of everything I had.”

“I can tell. You’ve walked twenty feet and you’re huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf.” Sherry grinned as Olivia shot her an irritated look.

To foul her mood even more, Slippery Simon himself came strolling around the corner, at first looking like he hadn’t a care in the world. Olivia felt her mood plummet and rage quickly took over. Sherry cried out as her enraged friend stomped towards Simon, reeled back her injured shoulder, and drove her closed fist straight into his jaw, her shoulder screaming in agony. The unexpected impact knocked him off his feet and he hit the tile floor with a thud. As she went to land another punch, a strong set of arms curled under her own and hauled her back, mindful of her still aching shoulder. She knew who it was that had grabbed her, but she fought against him anyways as Simon cradled his injured jaw and glared up at her.

“You deserve far worse than that, you motherfucker,” she seethed, writhing in Negan’s grip again. “You nearly got me killed!”

Simon clambered to his feet and Negan tightened his grip on her, letting the altercation continue without interference for a moment.

“What the fuck was so important that you needed to break rank and go all Lone Ranger, huh?” Olivia growled. It may have been the most inappropriate time for his blood to heat at her rage, but it did, and he loosened his grip just slightly on her so she wouldn’t feel his dick twitch in his pants. She felt his grip falter and she shoved his arms off of her, taking one menacing step forward. “Huh? What the _fuck_ was _so_ fucking important?! There was nothing, was there?”

Without so much as a glance at his boss, Simon rounded on her, stepping closer so that they were nearly nose-to-nose. His eyes flared rabidly, rage igniting his temper before he could rein it in.

“I don’t need to explain _shit_ to you, _bitch_.” He paused, and as he opened his mouth to continue, Negan decided to step in. He set his jaw and stepped around Olivia.

“No, but you _do_ need to explain to me why you put someone else’s life in danger.” Olivia glanced up at Negan warily, taking his uncolorful language as a bad sign that he was well and truly pissed. Now that her temper had simmered—only slightly—she couldn’t ignore the pain radiating from her gunshot wound—but she wanted to see Simon have his ass handed to him first.

Simon suddenly cowered like a dog with its tail between its legs, stuttering out, “Like I said, boss, just wanted to be proactive and scope out some new spots, that’s all. Supplies ain’t gonna last forever—”

“That doesn’t explain why you blatantly went against my one order and went off on your own,” Negan cut him off harshly, angling his head closer to the smaller man. Simon craned his neck backwards in fear of his boss, whose face was growing red with ire.

“I-I’m sorry, boss. It won’t happen again, I swear.”

Negan took a small step back, his jaw still clenched. “I’m still considering the iron for you, you slithery fuck. Get out of my sight.” Simon turned on his heel and took off like a bat out of hell, leaving Negan, Olivia, Sherry, and a few stragglers behind in the hallway. He turned back to Olivia and frowned at the pinched expression on her face. Sighing, he gestured for Sherry.

“Take her up to my room and make sure she didn’t rip her stitches,” he ordered softly, glancing disapprovingly at Olivia, who wisely kept her eyes down. Sherry wrapped a thin arm around her shoulders and led her to the stairs. Negan remained, rubbing a hand over his face as they disappeared. Rage boiled in his belly, itching to be expelled in the only surefire way Negan knew how, but he reined himself in. He needed his composure to plan.

Upstairs, Olivia sat on Negan’s plush bed, covered in a dark grey comforter. She had her shirt off, and Sherry’s cool hands were checking over her bullet wound. Fortunately, after Olivia’s little stunt, none of the stitches had popped.

“Did you see Simon’s face?” Sherry laughed as Olivia tugged her shirt back on. “I can’t believe you actually socked him. Where you’d learn to punch like that anyways?”

“My ex-husband,” Olivia muttered, averting her eyes from Sherry’s surprised stare. “He insisted that I at least know how to throw a punch or two.”

“Is he…?”

Olivia shrugged. “I don’t know. We were already divorced at the start of the Turn and he lived out-of-state. I have no idea where he is now, if he’s even alive…”

Sherry seated herself on the low dresser across from the bed. “Did you have kids?” Olivia tensed and picked at her nails, watching her fingers deftly weave between one another. She sighed through her nose. If someone were to know the details, it might as well be someone like Sherry. Negan had basic knowledge—knew she had a kid but didn’t know the circumstances of why her child was not with her now.

“We did. A little girl, Savannah. She looked so much like Ethan—his hair, his eyes. But she inherited my personality, through and through.” She smiled sadly. “She was five when she got sick. Leukemia, advanced stages. She went through surgery and chemo, and she was in remission. But the next year for her scan it came back way more aggressively. We knew what it meant—more surgeries, more chemo, more medication. And we couldn’t put her through that, Ethan and me. So we gave her the best quality of life that we could—family trips, happy memories. We didn’t want her to feel sick, like she was dying. She passed smiling and laughing with her parents, the way it should have been.”

Sherry was frowning and her eyes brimmed with unshed tears for Olivia. “Christ, Liv, I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

Olivia smiled sadly as Sherry swiped a finger under her eyes. “Thank you. It was…tough to say the least. It didn’t help that Ethan had started pulling away from me when we learned we would lose our baby girl. He became cold, distant. Somewhere along the way I think he blamed me partially for what happened to her.”

Sherry’s eyebrows pulled together. “How could that possibly be your fault? You had no control over it.”

“I know, and for a while I fought him with that very argument. But no matter how hard I tried to reason with him, he just pulled further and further away, and I started to think that, somehow, I was responsible for what happened to Savannah. Three months after she died, Ethan moved out, and two weeks later I received divorce papers in the mail. It wasn’t a very hard decision to sign them; the Ethan I knew and fell in love with was replaced with a shell. The Ethan I knew wasn’t coming back. I sent them in and it was finalized in a month. Haven’t seen him since.”

“Shit, I’m sorry I asked, Liv.” Sherry sounded sincerely remorseful.

“No big deal. If anyone were to know, I’m glad it was you. Negan knows…that I had a child but he doesn’t know anything else. I think he’s a little afraid to ask for any more details to be honest.” She huffed a laugh and Sherry smiled.

A light knock on the doorframe turned both girls’ heads; Negan’s frame filled the doorway and he was glancing curiously between his wife and Olivia. Clearing her throat, Sherry pushed off the dresser and bid Olivia goodbye before sliding past Negan to take her leave. He took two steps into the room and reached for the crystal decanter on the coffee table between two couches.

“Stitches are fine,” Olivia mumbled to fill the silence. As he stood in the doorway, she took in his countenance and immediately knew he was feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. Negan folded himself into the cushions on one couch, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He took a long sip from the tumbler in his hands, twirling the crystal in his hands. Sighing, Olivia rose off the bed and sat beside him, closer than she probably would have a month ago.

“I know we had our…differences in the past, but you know you can confide in me, if you need to. I know what’s happened is stressing you out,” she told him quietly, letting her hand rest on his bare forearm. His skin was hot against hers, and she fought like hell to ignore the heat crawling up her arm.

He moved to lean his elbows on his knees, dislodging her hand, running a tired hand through his dark hair. In the sunlight streaming through the window, Olivia could clearly see the weariness in his eyes, made even more pronounced by the dark circles under his eyes. He set the glass on the coffee table and blinked slowly, wanting nothing more to take her up on her offer. He often confided in Sherry, but lately, he was unable to find the same solace he could find in talking with Olivia. He glanced at her briefly; she was watching him expectantly, waiting to see if he would actually give in and talk to her.

To solidify her argument, and tip the scale for him, she said, “You don’t have to do it alone.”

With a heavy sigh, Negan shut his eyes for a moment. “I just feel…lost. With this new group, with Simon, with…fading loyalties.”

Olivia felt an unexpected stab of guilt knowing she was the one who planted that seed in his head. And for what? Some semblance of control, some brief look at a former life. It broke her heart to see that her notion, her persuasion that Negan was losing his men, was weighing this heavily on him. While she did believe that Negan’s men were stepping further out of line with him, it was a thought that probably would never occur to him until she put that initial thought in his head.

She’d be damned if she ever admitted it to him, though.

“There isn’t too much we can do about this new group. As much as I hate to say it, the only thing we can do is wait and see if they come to us. Gunshots across a clearing aren’t much to go on,” she told him and he gave her a sidelong glance. “Just have to sit back and wait it out. As for Simon, what are you going to do about him?”

Negan heaved. “I have to punish him. He put you in danger.” The look in his eyes as he gazed at her made her breath hitch in her throat. Then, he laughed sardonically. “You know, I think I liked it better when you outright hated me.”

Olivia pulled her eyebrows together and sat back, waiting for him to elaborate.

“It was easier to justify why I was staying away from you. Easier to know I’d either royally pissed you off or hurt you in some way.”

She glanced down at her hands, suddenly nervous at his implication. Despite being alone for four days in the infirmary, most of her time had been spent sleeping and resting. Her mind had given her a break from giving her the runaround, making her question every decision she’d ever made when it came to Negan. She still wasn’t sure what was drawing her to him in the first place. After the incident in his office, Olivia no longer felt disgusted by his presence, despite knowing he horrors he’d committed. Her view of him was swaying in the opposite direction the more time she spent with him, her mind a whirlwind of pros and cons for letting her guard drop around him. She wasn’t sure what was happening to her, but part of her didn’t want it to stop.

“And here I thought you got a kick out of getting under my skin,” she replied, her voice low and breathy. She didn’t miss the way Negan’s eyes darkened, and that signature grin split his face, his perfectly straight, white teeth gleaming.

“Oh, believe me, doll,” he retorted, his voice just as low, “I thoroughly enjoy getting under your skin. And I think you secretly like it.” Her face flamed in a blush that made her look away and made Negan chuckle huskily. Tentatively, he reached out with one hand and trace her jawline with the tip of his finger. Her eyes fluttered to his at the contact, her cheeks still flushing, and he held her gaze in his.

Slowly, he tipped her chin upwards and angled his head, leaning into her to just lightly brush his lips across hers. She held her breath, her eyes trained on his, and her stomach fluttered at the barest contact of his mouth on hers. He was watching her, leaving their mouths an inch apart in case she decided that it wasn’t what she wanted, but when she didn’t back away from him, he lowered his mouth to hers again, and their eyes fluttered closed.

Olivia let out a sigh through her nose as Negan’s mouth caressed hers, and she brought her hands up to curl into the front of his shirt and the other to tangle in his hair. The kiss was slow, testing the waters, but Olivia felt fire in her veins as he devoured her mouth. His lips were soft and skilled, and when she felt his tongue slide along her bottom lip, she opened her mouth, inviting him in. A low growl rumbled under her hand on his chest as his tongue mingled with hers, exploring the heat of her mouth. Growing bold, she tugged him closer and grazed her teeth along his bottom lip in a teasing nip. He groaned and moved the hand on her face to her hip, his fingers ducking under the fabric of her shirt to skim along the skin of her side.

She shivered and a small whimper from her throat made his lips smile against hers. Their kiss grew heated and forceful, and Olivia’s body was moving on its own as she pressed her hand against his chest and moved to straddle him, his groin lined up perfectly with hers. She ground herself into him, years of lack of human contact causing a whirlwind of emotions and desperation to cloud her better judgment. Negan’s breath hitched in his throat as she rolled her hips over his, and he lifted his off the couch to meet her movements. Olivia allowed herself to moan into his mouth as she felt his hardness against her heat, and the contact created a whole new surge of desire coursing through her. She let her hands roam, moving from his hair to the hard planes of his chest, to his arms that he kept locked around her. His own hands moved down to cup her hard and grind her even harder into him, and they swallowed each other’s moans.

When Negan attempted to rid her of her shirt, her shoulder protested, and it was like a switch went off. She pulled away from him with a hiss and opened her eyes, taking in his rumpled appearance. His lips were swollen from kissing, and his pupils were wide with desire. His breath left his lips in ragged gasps, and his hands were still on her waist. Her eyes scanned his face while her body still flared with want for him. As his body began to calm down, his eyes were still dark with desire. He brought a hand up and let the back of his knuckles brush against her cheekbone.

He glanced at her lips again as he let his hand rest on her skin. “Been waiting a long time to do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts?


	12. Chapter 12

“How much of my story did you hear?” Olivia asked him, later that evening. She lay beside him, on her good shoulder, her head in the groove between his shoulder and his neck. Negan had his arm draped loosely around her, avoiding her stitches, and drew patterns on her bare arm. He’d brought them dinner an hour earlier and they dined on the couches in his room. 

His muscles tensed beneath her, and for probably the first time in his life, Negan was sheepish. Then he scolded himself and told her the truth. 

“Nearly all of it. Heard you talking and I couldn’t bring myself to walk away. I’m sorry.” He sounded truly apologetic and Olivia sighed into his t-shirt, enjoying the smell of him. It was a mix of soap, leather, and something muskily masculine that she just dubbed ‘Negan’. 

“I probably would’ve told you at some point anyways,” she said quietly. She felt Negan shift as he looked down at her. 

“Would you have?” he asked softly, but challengingly. Olivia leaned back slightly to meet his eyes, her lips pressed in a tight line. 

“Maybe not. It’s not something I like discussing with people, as you can imagine.” 

Negan lifted a hand to brush across her hair. “It wasn’t your fault. No matter what he said to you.” 

“I know. It took me a long time to stop believing it was. I would fight Ethan about it, tell him I had no control, but when I wasn’t getting any kind of response back, I just…I don’t know, started to wonder. Was it something I was feeding her? Or something I wasn’t doing? Did I forget some kind of vaccination or something? I asked myself so many questions, tried to find the answers, I nearly drove myself mad. Then I just…accepted it for what is was. Destiny, fate, what have you, and I learned to move on. That’s all I could do.” 

Negan was quiet under her for a few moments, though his hand was still working through her hair. It was relaxing her. Paired with the warm food in her belly, she was close to falling asleep. 

“I did the same with my wife. I spent a lot of time blaming myself enough for the both of us, but Lucille, she didn’t blame me at all. Not even when I came clean about my mistress.” He huffed. “Sounds fucking medieval when I say it like that. But that’s what she was, and I hated myself every day for it. I never really pictured myself as a one-woman man, but when Lucille was diagnosed, I dropped my side woman in a heartbeat and gave Lucille the care and dedication I should’ve throughout our entire marriage. That was the guilt trip of the century.” 

“I guess that explains the harem of wives then.” She’d tried to say it jokingly, but Negan detected the small twinge of jealousy in her tone. He chuckled and tightened his hold on her, enjoying the fact that he’d made her jealous, especially of women who barely held his attention for more than twenty minutes. 

“You seem to get along well with Sherry,” he pointed out. 

“She’s a good woman, a good friend.” Her voice trailed off as a yawn broke through, and she smiled slightly when Negan nuzzled her hair. 

“You can sleep if you want.” 

Olivia chewed her lip for a moment before she pulled away and sat up on her knees, shaking her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t trust my shoulder not to give out.” 

The grin he gave her was all hungry wolf and it made warmth pool in her belly. She almost changed her mind from that look alone, but logic won out and she stood up from the bed. She idly rubbed her sore shoulder as Negan unfolded his large frame and walked around the bed. On his way to the door, he swiped up Lucille, who was resting against one of the plush couches, and laid her tenderly on his shoulder. 

“I’ll walk you. Got some shit to take care of,” he said, looking down at her. He dropped a kiss to her head softly and she turned to lead the way out of the room. Negan’s wives were seated in the other room, all wearing similar black dresses and heels. All but one of them leered as Olivia ducked her head, ultimately avoiding their stares. Sherry was the only one who wasn’t looking at her like Olivia was encroaching on her territory; they were both aware of the reason why, and it calmed Olivia as she and Negan stepped out into the hallway. 

“Thought I’d be buried six feet under,” she muttered with an exaggerated shiver. Beside her, Negan chuckled. She cast him a sideways glance. “Glad you think it’s funny. You’re not the one encroaching on territory.” Negan’s hand around her bicep made her stop and look up at him. His touch was gentle but his expression was firm. 

“Hey, my wives don’t have shit to say about who I choose to spend my fucking time with. Any of them give you problems, you let me know pronto.” 

She set her mouth in a thin line and nodded slowly. “You think they will? Give me a hard time?” 

“Not if they’re fucking smart, doll face.” 

He walked her to her room further down the hall and gave her one hell of a knee-buckling goodbye kiss outside her door. She stared dreamily after him as he walked towards the stairwell before shaking herself and locking herself in her room. 

Meanwhile, Negan headed downstairs with the intentions of rounding up a scouting group. Simon, as much as he despised the idea, would show them the clearing in the woods. One of his soldiers intercepted him at the bottom of the stairs, and Negan ordered that Simon, Dwight, and a handful of others meet him out by the vehicles.

 Once they were all gathered, Negan spoke: 

“It seems we have some competition in our area. A few days ago, two of our own were attacked by another group. We need to scout the area for any sign of them and determine whether they’re going to become a more serious fucking problem. Now, Simon, you royally fucked up, my man. You willingly disobeyed orders and nearly got one of our own killed. You are not yet forgiven for that, and it pains me to have to put you in charge. But since Olivia is laid up, you’re the only one I can rely on. Do not disappoint me again. You’ll head out first thing in the morning. Get some sleep, boys.” 

The group dispersed, and as Negan rounded the building, he hissed a curse as he caught Olivia making her way into the barn. He followed her inside silently and leaned against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He watched as she clipped a lead line to Daredevil’s halter and led the horse out of its stall. She dropped the lead line and turned towards the door, jumped when she noticed Negan standing there. He huffed as she at least managed to look sheepish. 

“Thought you were sleeping,” he said, amusement tinging his tone as he stepped forward. She scratched her arm idly before turning to the small green brush box propped up against one of the stalls. She bent down, pulling out a weird plastic stick with a metal hook on the end. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” she replied with a subtle lift of her shoulders.

 “Sounds like you didn’t try.” He came to a stop beside her at the black horse’s shoulder, though he took a small step back when she bent at the waist, putting her head far too close to his nether regions. A knot formed in his gut as his mind ran away from him. He played it off, watching as she picked up the horse’s foot and used the tool in her hand to scrape dirt, feces, and who knew what else. 

She straightened when she dropped the hoof and met his eyes evenly. “I didn’t.” 

“You’re supposed to be resting. You’re no fucking good to me if you don’t heal.” His tone was laced with concern and it made her purse her lips. She stroked Daredevil’s belly absentmindedly. 

“I feel fine. It’s sore but it won’t kill me. Besides, I can’t just…sit cooped up in there. I’ll go crazy.” He looked doubtful as he looked down at her. “I’m fine, I promise. And if I feel like I’m not, I’ll take it down a notch. I just…need to feel useful.” 

He watched her for a moment before sighing through his nose. He took her chin lightly in his hand, his eyes boring into hers. The emotion swimming in them nearly made her pull away, but she stood fast. She let herself relax when he leaned down and just lightly brushed his lips across hers. 

“Don’t make me regret it,” he told her lowly, their lips millimeters apart. She nodded, her chin still in his hand. He pulled away from her a moment later and turned to look at the horse. “So, what are you doing here?”

“Cleaning his feet. It’s important to keep horse’s hooves clear of rocks and mud and shit. Makes for a cesspool for infections. Especially rocks.” She moved them towards Daredevil’s hind end, and Negan took a sweeping sidestep away as Olivia picked up his back foot. She beckoned him closer, though he did so hesitantly. “You see this triangle here? That’s called the frog. It’s a shock absorber for when the horse puts his foot down. It’s super sensitive and if you scrape it, you’ll know it. Daredevil here looks like he was in great care, so he doesn’t seem to have too many issues with his feet.” 

“You aren’t afraid he’ll…” He clucked his tongue and kicked a foot forward. Olivia smiled. 

“Not really. Horses like this are pretty used to having their feet messed with. Do you want to try?” She held the hoof pick out to him but Negan shook his head vehemently. 

“No fucking way. I’m not getting that close to the business end.” Olivia laughed at his word choice and his expression and he smiled at succeeding in making her laugh. 

“Suit yourself. He won’t hurt you. You don’t have to be scared.” There was a teasing glint in her eye that made Negan’s stomach flutter. 

“Scared? I’m not scared of shit.” Hell yes he was. 

“You were scared the other day,” she murmured quietly, her eyes softening sadly. Damn, she had him there. 

“I was,” he admitted. 

“It’s okay, you know. We’ll find these men and find out why they shot at us. I’d still like another shot at Simon though…” 

“You and me both. I’m sending him out there tomorrow morning to scout. He’s the only one besides you who knows where the fuck it is, and I’ll be damned if I send you out there in your condition.” 

“My condition? I have stitches in my back, not a broken leg,” she argued. In a flash, Negan’s demeanor hardened, shutting her out again. 

“The answer is still no. You’re not even supposed to be straining yourself caring for your little ponies.” 

She scoffed. “Screw you, Negan. I got shot, I’m not dead. And could you be any more condescending?”

He took a menacing step towards her, towering over her, his eyes flashing angrily. “Don’t push me, Olivia. The answer is still no. Now put him back in his stall and get your ass up to your fucking room. I don’t want to see you out until Carson gives you the all clear.” 

Olivia clenched her jaw, meeting his steely gaze head-on. Rage swirled in her belly, but she reminded herself to pick her battles. With only two of Daredevil’s feet done, she whirled away from the leader of the Saviors and led Daredevil into his stall. When she stormed by Negan, she rammed her good shoulder into his arm for good measure, making clear that she was not pleased with the way he’d treated her. 

He left her alone for the rest of the day, and Olivia spent the time doing as he’d said—up in her room and bored out of her mind. She thought about reading, but none of the titles caught her interest in her current frame of mind. Negan’s attitude flip still had her reeling. One moment he was tender and gentle, and the next he was angry and barking orders. So much for the caring man beneath the beast. She sighed. That wasn’t true. Negan had already changed in her eyes, had shown her a side she’d never in a million years thought she’d see. And in return, she’d opened up to him, let him in to glimpse the dark recesses of her mind, where her most painful memories were locked away. Though the images of that day with the young man would still haunt her, the ruthless leader of the Saviors had somehow gotten under her skin and made her care about him, made her care for the people he provided for and protected. Sure, sometimes his way of handling things seemed medieval or barbaric, but she was slowly coming to terms with the fact that the world was no longer a place of civility or rules. Negan had shown her that. 

She dragged a tired hand down her face. Once again, her relentless mind had worn her out, and after she showered, changed, and hopped into bed on her stomach, sleep found her quickly and easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay soooo, who hates me? I really hate that this took me two months to update. I feel terrible. I just had other things I was working on, but I cranked out this puppy so hopefully I'll be able to keep it updated fairly regularly. Let me know what you think! x


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